Dragon's Dusk

TO KILL A KING

BOOK TWO

SAM BURNS

W.M. FAWKES

Copyright © 2023 by FlickerFox Books.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Content Warning: this book is intended for adult audiences only, and contains graphic violence, blood, murder, domestic abuse (not between MCs), death, gore, torture, a poor former-dragon who cannot speak, and a Prince Charming who’s got a touch of the old ennui.

Cover art © 2022 by Natasha Snow Designs; www.natashasnowdesigns.com

Editing by Clause & Effect

Dramatis Personae

Konstantin Petrovich Vasiliev, Kostya – Prince of Voronezh, Rider of Green Dragon Kirian

Kirian – Green Dragon of Prince Konstantin

HOUSE VASILIEV

Dmitri Alexeyevich Vasiliev, Dima – King of Voronezh, Rider of Black Dragon Danik

Darya Alexeyevna Vasiliev, Dasha – Princess of Voronezh, Rider of Gold Dragon Adorjan

Prince Mikhail Petrovich Vasiliev, Misha – Rider of Red Dragon Maraht

Prince Evgeny Ivanovich Vasiliev, Genya – Bonded to Mink Grusha

Zoya Petrovna Vasiliev – Princess of Voronezh, Blood Witch

Alexei Viktorovich Vasiliev – d. Late King of Voronezh, Rider of Black Dragon Afansi

Georgiy Viktorovich Vasiliev – Prince of Voronezh, Rider of Green Dragon Gerasim

Pyotr Viktorovich Vasiliev – d. Late Prince of Voronezh, Rider of Red Dragon Prokhor

CITIZENS OF VORONEZH

Lady Ulyana Belyaev – Evgeny’s mother, Bonded to Snow Leopard Yuli

Lord Ivan Belyaev – Evgeny’s father, Bonded to Horse

Lord Feofan Belyaev – Lord Ivan’s oldest son, Bonded to Hawk

Lady Sonya Balakin – Bonded to Serpent Scriabin

Arkadii Alexeyev – Personal Guard of King Dmitri, Bonded to Griffin Alina

Nikolai Propokov – Personal Guard of Princess Darya, Bonded to Wolf Nazar

Annika – Castellan of Late Prince Pyotr’s Country Estate

Pavel – Vasiliev Guard

Gavriil – Jailor, Bastard of King Alexei Vasiliev

Zakhar Laskin – anti-blood bonding radical, admirer of Prince Konstantin, bonded to dog name unspecified

Chapter 1

Kostya

Flowers didn’t bloom in Voronezh anymore.

Not for lack of trying, of course. They were still planted every year, and those plants that didn’t die over the winter remained and continued to grow. They simply remained bloomless.

None of it stopped Dasha, sweet Dasha, from trying.

She had a dozen pots placed strategically throughout her private solarium, trying to capture as much sun as possible for as many hours as she could.

Blood lilies, all of them.

The blood lily was the royal flower. The flower that had once grown in front of every house in the realm, in all the public garden beds, and in whole fields in the mountains outside the palace. Deep crimson and soft as velvet, they reminded everyone of the golden era of Voronezh.

Except that these twelve pots grew steadily, lush and green, but without so much as an attempt to bud. The only thing blood lilies reminded anyone of anymore was the miserable, broken state of the land. Of their king.

Upon his ascension, Dima had gone through the same ritual as his ancestors, making him one with Voronezh. And Voronezh was dying, slowly but surely, one flower at a time.

Only his beautiful twin still had this much faith, believing that things would get better.

As I watched, she pricked her finger, letting a few drops of her blood fall on the stem of the plant.

“An interesting technique,” Zoya said from where she was lounging on a black chaise, also turned to face the sun. My sister was like one of those very hothouse flowers, with dark hair and bright red lips, and eyes that seemed to hold more mysteries than all the libraries in the world.

She was dark where Dasha was light, like the rest of the royal family. The lot of us with our white hair and bright eyes, only Zoya full of shadows and mystery.

The biggest difference between Dasha and the rest of us was that Dasha’s eyes were as pale as the rest of her. They’d been blue like mine once. Like Misha and Dima and our fathers.

Then, I’d lost control, and she’d been hurt.

Dasha lifted her head and turned in Zoya’s direction, offering a smile. “They are blood lilies, after all. I thought perhaps the blood of a royal dragon rider might help.”

Zoya shrugged and reached for a dried cherry, even darker than her stained lips. After chewing and swallowing, she pushed out of her seat and came to join me where I stood with Dasha, to look at the plant.

Dasha’s nimble fingers ran lightly over the leaves, testing, and her face gave no sign of disappointment when they found no bud.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” Zoya finally said, though her expression was more sad than hopeful.

None of us thought the plants would bloom.

But who could kill Dasha’s hope? Only a monster would want to hurt our sweet cousin. Even Dima, hard and angry as he was now, wouldn’t hurt his twin sister.

Not deliberately, at least.

“Perhaps this year,” I said, my voice too soft, even for the quiet room. It was hard, with Dasha, to be anything but that. To take up space in her life. I had no right.

Not after I was the one responsible—

All I could see was the point of the dagger.

The king’s dagger, held in front of my eye. “I should take your eyes in recompense,” he hissed, teeth bared.

I tried my best not to blink. Not to move. Not to let a single expression cross my face. Behind me, my father was ranting about accidents happening, and children being innocent. Mother was sobbing, pleading with the king. I could have told them both that did nothing. There was only hate in my uncle’s gaze. He didn’t give a damn about accidents or apologies. He hated me for what I’d done. For what I’d allowed to happen.

So did I.

Some sick part of me wanted him to do it. Wanted him to put out my eyes, so that I would share Dasha’s suffering. The only reason I didn’t say so was because of Kirian. I couldn’t do that to him.

He’d always been a small dragon. Smaller than any other his age, and even some who were younger. Many of the other dragons treated him like some animals did runts: they rejected him, abused him. It had gotten so bad that the handlers had given him his own private room in the stable. So he was nervous. Easily frightened.

When Dasha’s dragon, Adorjan, had tried to leap upon him unexpectedly in play, he’d reacted swiftly and violently, spraying a gout of flame in her face. Burning her badly, almost killing her. Blinding her. Blinding Dasha forever through their bond.

“No, you’re right,” the king hissed at my father. “I should just kill him if he’s too weak to control his dragon. Voronezh has no place for weaklings.”

That moment, I suspected, was the one my father decided to kill his brother.

Also my fault.

There was a scuffle at the side door, and everyone turned. Everyone but the king and me. I could see from the corner of my eye, Dima and Dasha, his arm around her waist, holding her up and back at the same time. Protecting her from their father’s anger, which he would easily turn on her, despite the fact that it was currently aimed at me because I had hurt her.

She wasn’t to be stopped, though. “No,” she insisted, leaning forward, toward us, as though she would break away and run between us, even blinded as she was. “If you hurt Kostya, Father, I will never forgive you. Never.”

The king hissed in anger and spun to glare at her, so I looked at them as well. Dima was holding her so tight I thought she might bowl him over, and when he glanced up at me, I wasn’t sure if he pitied me or hated me. Both, maybe.

The king didn’t take my eyes, but it changed little. I had cost my cousin her sight, and the only person who would ever forgive me for it was Dasha herself.

Blood and land knew that I had not.

“—to see how Kirian is,” Zoya was saying when my mind came back to the moment.

She looked at me as though expecting an answer, so I nodded. “Of course. Kirian has not been feeling well, so I’ve been checking in even when I can’t go flying.”

Motion made me glance to Dasha, whose arms were pulled up in front of herself, clasped together as though she was terribly pleased. There were actual tears in her eyes. What had I missed?

“Good,” Zoya said. “I think Kirian will enjoy seeing Dasha again.”

The breath in my lungs turned to shards of ice. Dasha? Seeing Kirian? They hadn’t been in the same room in years. More than a decade, not since . . . not since then.

I’d never imagined she wanted to be in his presence again, after what I’d allowed to happen.

And yet the sheer joy on her face was—

“I’m afraid that is not allowed,” said a soft, hesitant voice from the door. Nikolai, Dasha’s personal guard. Also, I suspected, the love of my cousin’s life, given the way he’d refused every personal promotion offered to him in order to stay with her. His jaw was clenched, and he was clearly unhappy about what he was saying. He wouldn’t even look me in the eye. “The king does not wish Lady Dasha to be in the presence of . . . of Kirian.”

My cousin had said something considerably less pleasant than my dragon’s name, no doubt. Called him a monster or a demon, the way some others did, either because of Dasha’s injury, or because there had been a green dragon spotted mauling cattle in recent months. There were only two members of the royal family with green dragons, and no one suspected that Uncle Georgiy’s tame old Gerasim was the one doing it. Everyone assumed it was Kirian and not a wild dragon, because he was the only dragon in the royal stable with a history of hurting anyone.

No one ever put the blame where it belonged: on his rider.

Because that was a simple fact. The former king, while an unmitigated ass in many ways, had been right. I had not controlled my dragon, and my cousin would spend the rest of her life paying for my failure. And so would Kirian.

The smell of salt filled the air, and Dasha turned away. “I . . . I shall have to speak to Dima on that. It’s not right.”

Nikolai winced at the notion of even Dasha trying to approach the king. We all did. She was perhaps the only person left in the land that he cared for, but that did not mean he would listen to her. Dima listened to no one.

“You cannot blame Dima for his concern,” I told her. “I wouldn’t wish Kirian to hurt you—”

“He would never,” she insisted, spinning back toward me, her hand darting out to wrap around my upper arm, squeezing hard. “He was a scared baby who made a mistake. We cannot spend the rest of his life punishing him for it.”

I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply for a moment. How many times had I thought the same? But Dasha and I were perhaps the only people in all Voronezh who believed it.

And yet, when I looked to my sister, the hard anger in her eyes told me that she, too, agreed with our cousin. And even Nikolai, who adored Dasha above all others, ducked his head at me when I glanced in his direction.

“Adorjan misses him,” she added as she let go. “But I suppose upon Dima’s orders, that is not a matter for today. You should go see him, even if I cannot visit. Give him an extra kiss for me?”

I tried not to flush at the implication that I would be kissing my dragon on my own behalf, but cleared my throat and agreed. “Of course, Dasha. I’m certain he’ll be happy to have it.”

Zoya said her goodbyes and wrapped an arm around my waist, leading me out, as Dasha went back to bleeding for her lilies. I sent a thought into the land, hoping that if there was any higher power listening, it would give her what she so wanted. A single flower wasn’t so much to ask for, was it?

The dragon stables were on the opposite side of the palace from the one for horses. Not because dragons were inclined to hurt horses, but because the horses did not know that, and enormous lizards who breathed fire made them nervous.

I had always hated the dragon stables. We kept our dragons in a huge stone building with no windows. No way for Kirian to see sunlight. And since he’d blinded Adorjan and Dasha, no way for him to see anything but four walls and a door, since he wasn’t allowed around other dragons.

My attention was on the ground as I let Zoya lead me to the stable, but when I felt her hesitate and slow, my head snapped up.

It was nothing but Uncle Georgiy.

He smiled at us, waving as he pulled off his riding gloves, shiny russet things that caught the sunlight with pebbled texture. Dragon skin. Disgusting. Uncle Georgiy was far from the only noble at court who would wear such a thing, but the very thought made me ill. Dragons were clever and independent and our friends. Wearing their hides was just like wearing human skin, in my opinion.

Still, he was my uncle. The only living one, and he’d never done me a wrong in my life. I forced a smile for him as we passed. “Uncle Georgiy.”

He grinned at both of us, inclining his head. He met Zoya’s eye for a long moment, something passing between them that I couldn’t parse. Perhaps understanding, as the only two living members of the royal family who were ever on the outside of things. Misha and I had always been marked as advisor and war leader for the king, but Zoya and Uncle Georgiy had somehow been . . . passed by, since Dima had taken the throne. Both had always claimed to be happy for it, and I couldn’t blame them, but it was an unusual position for a royal to take, when so many coveted the throne.

I wished for such a quiet life, free of responsibility and expectation.

“Off to see Kirian?” he asked, and while he put no particular emphasis on it, the very words set my teeth on edge. It was never good when anyone spoke of Kirian. No one understood him. No one loved him. No one wanted him.

Only me. Kirian was my very soul, and all Voronezh despised him.

“Yes,” Zoya agreed, short and to the point as ever, and dragged me past him into the dark of the stable.

Chapter 2

Kirian

It was dark here.

There were things on the wall—sticks with bulbous ends that the tamers lit aflame when they came each morning, leading an animal on a rope.

The servants called the sticks “torches,” because they were a special kind of stick. But one by one, the sticks would hiss and burn out, and the dark returned.

They were lit again when it was time to eat in the evenings.

And they were lit each time that my Kostya came to see me. After all, my Kostya was a prince, and the servants that tended and fed us would not have a prince of the land and the blood walking in darkness.

Too bad, that a prince had bonded such a pathetic runt.

When I had grown and the old king died, it’d become, “too bad, that a prince bonded such an unstable beast.” Prince Konstantin had promise, they said, but a king could not claim the throne without a dependable dragon. The lands would suffer and wilt, and it was me, not my Kostya, who was not suited to rule.

He was perfect. Suited to all things.

For him, they lit the fires and opened the door to let in fresh air.

I often wondered if it was for him that they cleaned the floors at all, or why they cleaned my scales with their rough brushes and river water. A prince ought not see filth.

I supposed I was grateful for it. Once, when I had seen fifteen winters, my Kostya had fallen ill with fever. He’d not been able to leave his bed, and the servants had forgotten me.

Those long days were torture, knowing he was suffering and that I could not be with him. In time, Prince Misha had come, and when he’d seen me in the dark and grime, there’d been much shouting and the sharp scent of blood had filled the air.

He’d come to me after all that ruckus with bloodied knuckles, but his voice had been gentle when he’d touched my snout and told me that Kostya was recovering and that he missed me very much.

That day, he took me out with Maraht to see the blood lilies.

It was a good day.

My stable never stayed messy for long after that.

Other than Maraht, I did not much like dragons. I had wished many times to be more like him. He was known among dragons to be formidable, even terrifying. No one dared to even growl at him.

With me, he had always been so strong and proud. A dragon like that could carry a king, and my Kostya deserved such a dragon.

Instead, he had me. A runt who’d grown too slow, who was too fast to act in fear or desperation, who’d been held apart for my whole life.

All said, it was not so bad to have a space entirely to myself, even if that space was dark. The other dragons shared larger spaces and freedoms that I had lost, but I had attacked Adorjan. I was simply too dangerous.

Sometimes, it was a wonder to me that other dragons did not harm each other simply to get a room to themselves. Maybe they didn’t mind each other’s company.

Maybe it was just that they had never felt vulnerable around other dragons. Maraht had hatched a few winters after me, and his sire had watched over him in the stables. My own had shown no interest.

I couldn’t imagine being so at ease. Even when I was a hatchling, it was a relief to sleep alone. Before they’d found me a place of my own, I’d spent the nights afraid that one of the other dragons would snap me in half to cull the weakling. Afansi, who carried the king, would snarl at me like he wanted to.

I had not mourned when he died.

What I hated most in the world wasn’t the dark or the mess, though. It was that Kostya could not be with me always. He had duties and “court,” and sometimes I got the sense that that was a place and sometimes it sounded like a people and mostly it sounded like bullshit, because a wave of exhaustion fell on my Kostya every time it came up.

We should have been flying, not going to court, or overseeing the court, or courting. What in the king’s frigid, icy blood was courting?

Misha teased my Kostya about it, and I hated that. Kostya hated it too, I thought. He did not have time for people. He barely had enough time for me. He said that while running his warm hand over my scales, and it felt every bit as good as basking in the sunlight.

Then, when Misha had left, Kostya called him ridiculous and we went flying.

Another good day.

Truth told, almost all good days involved my Kostya, so when the servants came to light the torches between breakfast and supper, I pushed my belly off the ground to stand and stepped eagerly toward the one large door to the room, my claws scraping the stone floor beneath my feet.

Some of the servants flinched at the sound, but I barely noticed, because my Kostya swept in a moment later.

Arm in arm with his sister.

My breath caught. Zoya frightened me. She was a witch of the blood, and she performed the bindings that tied people together. She hadn’t been alive to perform my binding with Kostya, but I remembered the witch who had, her wrinkled face and frigid hands and the knives. Her magic made my skin crawl.

Zoya blinked at me slowly, but Kostya was already releasing her arm, stepping toward me with both hands out. I bent down and pressed my face into his hands. His pleased hum sent a tingle rippling down my spine. My tail flicked.

“Can we bring you anything for your ride, Your Highness?” one of the servants asked, his eyes averted.

Kostya seemed not to have heard him, occupied as he was in tickling just the right place under my jaw to send me purring.

“Has the king taken Danik out recently?” Zoya asked, her hands clasped behind her back. She swung around to look at the servant, the wool of her dress sweeping out with the movement.

“We’ve not seen His Majesty in a fortnight.”

“And Mikhail?” Kostya asked.

Not so inattentive after all. Still, he hadn’t stopped stroking his clever hand across my scales, and so long as he kept that up, all was right in the world.

“He took Maraht for a ride last night with Prince Evgeny.”

Zoya let out a small huff. “It rained last night.”

“Yes, Your Highness. They, um, they returned quite . . . muddy.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Zoya muttered under her breath.

“That is all, Egor,” Kostya said, and our servant seemed all too happy to scamper away. Now, if only Zoya would.

With a dissatisfied sigh, the witch crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. It was rounded, the whole place making up a large oval. Before me, it’d been split into parts, a place for mothers and hatchlings to nest away from other dragons. I was too big for that now.

“I suppose it’s good Misha’s happy,” Zoya said. “He seems much less likely to burn the palace down of late.”

“Indeed,” Kostya said. He sounded perfectly pleasant, but across our bond, I felt a wave of sadness that I didn’t understand.

It took me a second to untangle the complicated knot of his very human feelings. He was pleased that Misha was happy. He had always wanted that.

But for so long, since the death of Prince Pyotr, it had been Kostya and Misha against everything. They’d stood together, and Kostya had shielded his younger brother from the worst of King Dmitri’s wrath.

Now, he feared Misha did not need him. Worse, he feared he was left to stand alone.

A sound rumbled in my throat without my bidding. He had to know that I would never, never let him face this world on his own. I pushed into his hands, past them to nudge against his stomach. My forked tongue flicked over his kaftan. The fibers were a little salty, slightly damp from the humidity outside. I licked him again, and he chuckled, bending over my snout to press his forehead against mine.

“What’s the matter, beloved?” he asked so softly.

How could anything be the matter with him there?

Zoya cleared her throat. She was . . . still staring. Through my nose, I huffed. She could go now.

She saw too much—more, even, than Kostya could see, and we were bonded. Of course, I didn’t know that, but she frightened me with her depthless eyes.

Just when I was beginning to worry Kostya truly meant to bring her with us, she used her arm to push off the wall.

“I should leave you to it. Go ride while the sun’s still out. We’ve gotten little enough of it lately, and Kirian gets even less.”

I couldn’t tell if the bleak feeling that hit me at those words was Kostya’s, or my own.

Chapter 3

Kostya

They kept Kirian in the dark, and no number of threats or bribes changed that. Whenever I asked for anything at all, the dragon keepers would look away, mumble something about the king’s orders, and leave as quickly as possible.

It wasn’t their fault, exactly, but would it have been so hard to sneak him an extra torch, or a spare haunch of fresh meat, or just . . . anything that would have made his largely solitary existence brighter?

I brought those things when I could, certainly. I always fed him treats when I took him out, and gave him everything at my disposal. But unless I left the palace permanently, I couldn’t make a major change.

And naturally, when I asked for permission to retire to the family’s country estate, Dima denied me.

He knew why I wanted to go. He’d once sneered as much at me, and told me I was free to leave, but that the monster I called my soul would remain in the palace dragon stables.

I could never, would never, leave Kirian behind. So at the palace I remained, always, where they gave Kirian just enough to keep us both on our feet.

Over the years, I’d become used to saddling him myself, because the dragon keepers did not want to approach him. They refused to accept that an accident two decades earlier did not define his entire personality. Misha saddled Maraht himself as well, but I thought that was simply my brother’s sheer stubbornness: if I had to do it, then he would do the same.

My brother had never wanted to be my better, only my equal.

The saddle was worn with regular use—the only one in the stables that fit Kirian, since he’d gone from the runt of the palace to one of the largest dragons in all Voronezh over the intervening years. I thought his sire was as large as he was, but Kirian was more heavily muscled, likely from all the hours we spent flying together.

If there were twice as many hours in the day, I could still never spend enough of them with Kirian.

All dragon riders were bonded to their mounts—without the bond, dragons were simply too wild, too unpredictable to ride. But it didn’t seem to me that even other dragon riders felt the same kinship with their dragons that I did.

Kirian was everything. My best friend, my confidante, the only one who never let me down and was always there for me, no matter what I’d done or how low I felt. Always ready to press his snout into my belly and give his adorable little inquisitive chirrup, or purr and make my whole body shake with the feeling of it.

Some days I wished we could simply fly away and never return. Leave Voronezh completely, perhaps.

Kirian nearly vibrated out of his pebbled green skin as I saddled him, so excited to be free of the confines of his cell that I half expected him to try to take flight right there in the room. He managed to contain himself long enough for me to lead him down to the huge circular stone slab that was the accepted flight zone. There, no one would be startled by dragons landing or taking off.

He was practically hopping by the time we got there, and it was all I could manage to leap into the saddle and strap myself in before he was airborne, his elegant jade wings stretched wide to catch the updraft.

His wingspan was so much wider than most of his brethren. I liked to imagine we cut a compelling figure, and tried not to think about how most people found him terrifying.

Kirian would never willingly hurt anything or anyone. They simply did not know him.

For an hour or more, I gave him his own lead and let him fly where he would. It was never too far from the palace, though he did like to lose sight of the towering marble walls we’d spent our whole life living behind. Perhaps it was his own attempt to eke out a bit of freedom.

Perhaps it was the closest thing to freedom he understood.

He was clever, even for a dragon, and I’d always believed dragons every bit as clever as humans, but he couldn’t know what no one had ever taught him.

He found a grassy slope on a nearby mountain and landed softly in a bright sunny patch, turning to look at me with question in his eyes.

I reached up and ran both hands along his neck and smiled at him. “Of course, my love. I’d never deny you a nice nap in a patch of sun when we can get it.”

I unbuckled my harness and let myself drop to the grass, and he rolled onto his back, showing his green belly to the sun. He gave a deep contented smile, and his head lolled to one side as he looked over at me. Then he stretched one enormous paw out, wing sliding along the still-dewy grass as he made room at his side for me.

As he always did.

I couldn’t have hesitated if I’d wanted to, not that I wanted to. I went to his side, curling against him and leaning back against his heavy arm.

Perhaps I should have held it in, but . . .

“I broke things. Between—between Misha and me. It’s because I lied to him for so long. Or maybe because I told him the truth at all.” I couldn’t even look Kirian in the eye as I said the words. He wouldn’t judge me. He would never judge me.

But I judged myself.

“I never wanted to tell him that Father killed Uncle Alexei. That he—that he asked me to be involved in a plot against the king.” Turning, I buried my face against his rough, scaly skin, so that I could pretend any wetness there was simply dew from the grass. “I should have stopped Father then. Not that I—how would I have stopped him? But I should have done something. Uncle Alexei was a terrible man, and a worse king, but at least Dima was better then. At least Voronezh wasn’t slowly dying because of Dima’s grief over what I allowed to happen.”

A clawed paw brushed my hair out of my face. It was bigger than my head, but Kirian had learned to be so careful, so precise, that not a single claw came near my skin. His enormous green eyes stared down at me with worry, and all I could feel in our bond was love.

Complete, unquestioning love.

“Misha and Maraht might not visit you anymore,” I told him. “And it’s because of me. Because of how I lied to him, let him think Dima was wrong for years. Let him think our father was innocent.”

Nothing in him, nothing in our bond changed. He leaned down and rubbed the tip of his snout against my face, his tongue sliding out to wipe away any stray tear. Then he ran his paw down me like I was his pet cat and he was trying to get me to settle.

So I tried to settle. And he continued to pet me until I managed to drift off into perhaps the first restful moment of sleep I’d had since I’d told my brother the truth.

We had to get back to the palace before nightfall, or it would be more difficult to find it in the dark, and we both might miss dinner. At the stab of worry, calm took me again, and I was washed away in the feeling of my very soul comforting me.

Dinner was of no relevance. One missed meal did not starve a dragon. Only missing each other.

Chapter 4

Kirian

I’d never seen Kostya like this. It wasn’t that he’d never sunk into sadness, but this was something worse. It was like when Afansi had loosed his last rage-filled roar and the world had broken when his rider, King Alexei, had died.

All that followed was fear. For days, Kostya had been locked away in the castle.

Even in my separate stable, I had heard Maraht rage. It was as if he’d set the whole building aflame, it was so sweltering hot inside, even when the servants came in dripping wet and shivering, snowflakes in their hair.

In the end, I thought it was Maraht that’d brought our riders back. Either the Vasilievs lost two more dragons so soon after losing both Afansi and Prince Pyotr’s dragon, Prokhor, they left Maraht to tear the stables apart in an effort to find his Misha, or they allowed Misha to return.

And with him, Kostya.

Things had been different then. He’d been more subdued, more careful. He had cast furtive glances at Prince Misha while his furious brother raged and cursed the new king.

King Dmitri.

Dmitri had long hated me, but most of what I remembered about him and his sister was their bright white hair and quick smiles. They’d seemed so at odds with their serious father. I’d always hid in the shadows each time King Alexei stormed into the stables with his thick fur cloak billowing around him.

I’d seen Prince Dima tuck a blood lily into Dasha’s hair once, and I’d thought it would be nice to have a sister. When Misha was born and Maraht bonded him, he became the closest I had to a real sibling.

He was very loud sometimes.

This sadness, this devastation, felt very much like when the last king died. Only this time, the whole world wasn’t ending. It was just Kostya’s world, and all that I could do was let him rest and hope that it helped. When he was back at the palace, I couldn’t even be there for him.

It was late when we returned to the stable, and the servants were weary eyed and put out to have to offer any assistance at all. That, I didn’t mind so much, but when my Kostya pressed his hand to the side of my face and promised to come back, that drowning feeling of sadness welled up again, flooding my whole room and lingering long after he’d gone.

It was night outside, and the drowning sadness only got worse until I couldn’t stand it for another second. With a roar, I put my paws on the wall above the door and scratched at the stones. I threw my weight against the walls. The bricks were enormous, but I would crash through them if it killed me.

Beyond the door, there was shouting, the clinks of chains. I knew what was coming. They would try to chain me, keep me still, keep me from Kostya. This time, I was prepared.

Only, when the door cranked open, the servants hung back, their torches held aloft. Between them, with no torch of her own, stood a dark slip of a woman—Princess Zoya.

My crouch deepened as I took a step back. A growl rumbled through my chest, and fire climbed up my throat.

Fearlessly, Zoya stepped into the room and lifted her arms at her sides.

“Would you, Kirian?” Her dark gaze bore into me.

I pulled my lips back from my teeth in a snarl. I very much wanted to let my rage and sadness fly, but I knew how Kostya loved his sister, even when she baffled him.

No, I couldn’t hurt her. I had to step back.

The twitch of her red lips was satisfied.

“Leave us,” she said to the servants, who rushed to put their torches on the walls before they slipped back into the large corridor outside.

The metal clink echoed off the stone walls. They were closing the door, and I would not have a better chance to escape.

I jerked forward, and Zoya stepped aside.

Perhaps I could have made it, but her words brought me up short.

“You might escape, but it will hurt Kostya.”

I froze where I was, watching as the door shut firmly. I was still glaring at it when she walked in front of me in a wide arc.

“Perhaps you’d make it out of the stables,” she said, her voice soft and calm but making red tinge my vision nonetheless. “You might even tear your way through the palace and find him, but what then? You’d take him from his land, his family—”

I am his family.

“—and it would break his heart one day. Without Kostya at court, Misha will get himself in trouble, and our big brother will rush back to save him. If you ever returned, the king would see you both locked up, apart, for the rest of your lives. It is not an option.”

She was right; at least now, they allowed Kostya to take me out to fly.

I growled, but she simply lifted a brow at me.

“I didn’t say there were no options, little snake. I do have an idea I’d like to try.”

I wasn’t sure if I liked the sound of that, but I had to do something for my Kostya, even if it meant working with this witch.

She’d kept up her slow pacing, forcing me to shift and turn to keep her in my sights. Finally, she stopped and looked at me straight on. “I could give you what you want—what Kostya needs.”

Yes.

It wasn’t even a question. If Zoya’s magic made my skin crawl, that didn’t matter. There was one thing I was sure we agreed on: Kostya must be protected. What could she possibly ask of me that would hurt him?

My lips softened, closing over my sword-length teeth, and I tipped my neck to drag my chin across the stones and straw beneath me.

Yes, whatever it takes, yes. For Kostya.

Zoya did not look pleased. Her lips pinched, and she narrowed her eyes at me.

“I should warn you, I’ve never tried this before. I may fail. You would be my first experiment.”

That cold, prickly feeling that came with blood magic tickled through my veins, but I did not care. Not if it was for my Kostya.

To make the point, I rumbled and bent all four legs until my belly was flat on the floor, my throat stretched across the length of it.

Anything. I blinked at her slowly. Anything for my Kostya.

“If you’re certain.”

Zoya produced a dagger from beneath her cloak. She sliced her own palm, and I had to work not to flinch back. I’d been freshly hatched the last time blood magic had been cast on me.

It hadn’t been a pleasant experience.

As if it were nothing, she raised her hand and smeared her palm down the bridge of my snout. The sticky, metallic blood was too close to my nostrils, and I huffed. When she dragged her slick ruby fingertips across my lips, though, my tongue lashed out to taste.

It wasn’t so bad. Not so different than the spurt of blood that came with eating a live pig.

I didn’t know why I’d thought it would be different.

With the quiet click of a swallow, she watched me for a moment. I don’t know what she saw, because I felt nothing.

Had she failed?

“Good night, Kirian,” she said.

And that was it. She turned to go. The servants opened the door just wide enough to let her through.

The torches they’d lit for her had flickered out by the time I fell asleep.

When I woke, I was freezing. The stones were so cold. Even in a blizzard, they’d never been so cold.

Groggily, I pushed myself up, calling for the fire to spark in my chest. The floor would hold heat if I breathed fire across it for a few minutes, but there was a sharp, acidic feeling in my throat instead of the warm rumble I was used to.

Under my paws, the floor felt—blood and land, it was hard to explain, but it felt large and rough. The grain of stone dug into my hip as well.

I could feel the stone’s texture through my scales.

Startled, I scrambled onto my feet, but everything was in the wrong arrangement. My back legs were too long. My front ones, too short. And my tail? Gone. I listed without the counterbalance and fell with a bruising thump and a yelp that sounded . . . wrong.

It was wrong. Everything was wrong.

What had that witch done to me?

I was closer to the ground now, even when I stood just on my back legs. The light sneaking under the metal door to the corridor seemed brighter and closer than ever, my eyes more sensitive to the soft glow, if not able to see things more clearly.

Everything was more sensitive to—to everything.

Balanced precariously on my back legs, I threw out my front arms to either side and made my way toward that strip of light. Every step was awkward. My knees were twisted the whole way around.

I don’t know how long it took me to make it to the wall. It felt like forever, and my heart beat so fast that maybe it was only seconds.

When I felt the icy chill of the metal door against my palms, I hissed and jerked back, falling to my knees.

There in the faint light under the door, I saw the shape of my paws.

They were hands—square and pink, with long, clever digits just like Kostya’s. I moved them, watching as my stomach flipped over.

What had happened?

I used a hand on the wall to help me up, feeling around the edge of the door on the right side. Somewhere, there was a device the servants used to open the door from inside. It was too small and delicate for a dragon’s paw, but my little human hand slipped so easily inside the recessed square.

Inside it, there was a bar.

What did they do with this fucking bar?

Huffing, I pushed on it.

Nothing happened, but when I shoved it in my frustration, it listed to the side. It turned.

So I tried that.

The door inched open, and light from the torches outside flooded in.

I stepped into it and looked down.

My body was straight. Now, my shoulders were broader than my hips. How did humans jump, with such little strength in their hind legs?

Brown hair dusted my chest and down to a strange thatch between my legs. And there, between my legs, my cock hung, fully exposed to the elements.

No wonder Kostya wore his extra skins and cloaks. It was so cold.

I closed my hand over it, and the warmth of my palm was . . . it was nice. Better, at the very least.

Past it, my legs were also straight, cutting a strong line from my hips all the way down to my feet, flat against the floor from my toes all the way back to my heel.

Hissing, I curled my toes. There was brown hair there, and all up my legs, but none of it was enough to stave off the freezing air.

It helped to move, lifting one foot and then the other.

Maybe straight limbs weren’t bad for standing on your back legs. My legs had bent one way and then the other as a dragon, but as I shifted my weight, balancing became easier.

I crept forward, turning to look one way down the hall.

Long brown hair shifted against my back and slipped over my shoulder when I turned to see what was causing the sensation on my back. It tickled, but when I reached up my free hand to touch it, I found the back of my neck beneath it was very warm.

If I stayed here, they would find me. Perhaps being locked in the dark as a dragon was not pleasant, but I could not stay here as a man. I’d freeze to death.

So I crept through the door and down the empty corridor.

No one caught me. As I rushed, fast as I could, through the empty halls, trying to make sense of them now that I was shorter than my forearm had been, it seemed no one was even awake.

A dragon slipping out of the stables would’ve been noticed, since we were enormous.

But tiny human me, I walked right out the gate across the lawn from the palace, and squinted into the pink light of sunrise.

Chapter 5

Kostya

Kirian spent a restless night in the dragon stables, and that in turn kept me awake. Not that I didn’t have reasons of my own to struggle sleeping, but when all wasn’t well with Kirian, nothing could be well for me.

It had been our visit the day before, I was sure. He’d practically tried to follow me out when I’d left, pressing his face into me and making a high sound almost like a whimper. I should have just stayed in the stables with him.

I did it sometimes, even though the dragon keepers didn’t like me to.

It wasn’t that I wanted to put anyone out or give them extra work, but Kirian needed me. More than anyone else in all Voronezh, Kirian had no one but me. Particularly with Misha married—to say nothing of him still being angry with me—and Zoya . . . well, she was Zoya. More independent than any of us.

That was why I found myself headed out toward the stables just after dawn that morning. Kirian needed me. And if I were being honest with myself, I needed him right back.

I was happy for my brother that his marriage had worked out so well, if bizarrely, but it meant that I was more alone than I’d ever been before. I’d only thought the time after our father’s execution had been awful. Now Misha was off fucking his husband, Zoya was plotting or reading or whatever it was she did with her days, and my cousins . . . well, between blinding Dasha and not saving their father’s life, I’d caused them enough pain. I needed to leave them alone.

I was halfway between the palace and the stables when movement caught my attention, and I looked up to find . . . a naked man, stumbling over the grassy hill in front of the stables.

He was tall and tan, with long brown hair, and he moved with a clumsy sort of grace—almost like a newborn colt just learning to use his legs. One hand was covering his cock, so at least he had the presence of mind to protect that from the elements, whatever else was happening in his head.

He was biting his lip, taking each stumbling step with care and using his free arm for balance, but when he glanced up and saw me, he . . . he shone.

His whole face broke out in a grin to rival the sun, and he rushed forward, almost tumbling right down the side of the hill, till his eyes went wide and he stopped cold, balancing with both arms and giving the ground a suspicious glance, as though it might fly up at him without warning at any moment.

I rushed up to meet him, unbuttoning my outer coat as I went. The tunic and pants I wore beneath weren’t the warmest, but they would do for long enough to get him inside and find him clothes. It was spring, after all, and my cock wasn’t the one in danger of freezing off.

Pulling the coat off, I wrapped it around him, trying to tuck his arms into it as he accidentally struggled against me, more interested in patting my face than in getting warm. After a second, though, he paused in his movement and stared down at the coat, then hunched his shoulders and snuggled into it.

Somehow, his grin got even wider, and he started helping me instead of hindering.

“Are you well?” I asked. I had no idea how a naked man would have found his way into the open air at dawn. A drinking binge gone wrong, perhaps, or maybe he’d been robbed. He seemed far too happy for a man who didn’t reek of alcohol, though, let alone one who’d been robbed and left wandering the countryside naked.

Stranger still, he didn’t answer me. He just patted my face with his hands, then seemed to get distracted by that, looking at first my face, then his own palms, in wonder, as though they were something other than what he’d been expecting.

When he looked up to find me watching him with bemused curiosity, he ducked his head, almost bashful, and then bumped his face into my shoulder, burying it there.

I had . . . no idea what to do with that. He was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, with clear green eyes the color of a perfect apple, and a smile that lit his whole face. And he was treating me like a friend. Trusted.

It had been so long since any human had trusted me so completely, just the thought made me swallow hard and breathe deep.

Well then. Whoever this man was, whatever his circumstances, I wasn’t going to let him down. Perhaps he’d gotten a head injury while being robbed, and didn’t remember how to act, let alone what his name was or what had happened to him.

So I wrapped an arm around his waist and turned so we were facing the palace. I glanced back over my shoulder toward the stables, and the man gave an odd inquisitive noise, following my gaze and looking back at me, curious and confused.

Strangely enough, my sense of Kirian had gone from fear and loneliness to interest, perhaps curiosity. Maybe even the same happiness in him that I felt when he saw me come into his pen. Was there a new dragon keeper, who didn’t know they were supposed to fear and disdain him?

Either way, Kirian’s lack of pain made it acceptable, at least for the moment, to focus on this situation. This beautiful man who looked at me like I was something special. Something good.

I would visit Kirian later and find out if there was a new keeper. If there was finally one willing to be friendly to him, I would give them anything their heart desired to keep that kindness. Kirian deserved more friends than just me, even if a tiny part of me died inside at the thought of the only being left who needed me, needing me less.

It was not about me. It was about Kirian and his happiness, and I would never be selfish enough to take any tiny bit of that away from him.

As I led the man into the palace, he leaned against me with all his weight, letting me guide him and keep him from falling on his clumsy legs.

Misha had once told me that I was too easily charmed by a pretty face and batted eyelashes, and perhaps he was right. I’d told him that he was the one interested in pretty faces, but his point hadn’t been about my taste in bed partners, but my tendency to . . . to believe people. To believe in them, in their ability and intention to do good instead of evil.

Zoya called it naive.

But really, who would turn away a man who seemed so sweet and helpless? He couldn’t possibly be armed, unless he was keeping a weapon somewhere I didn’t want to consider.

We managed to stumble into the palace, through the gates and halls to our family’s quarters, into the parlor I shared with my siblings. The servants were setting out food as we arrived, and seemed surprised to see me.

“I’m terribly sorry, Prince Konstantin,” one of them said, bowing deeply. “We did not realize you were awake already. Did you wish us to start bringing the morning meal earlier?”

“Not at all,” I dismissed. “I was up earlier than usual and had not intended to eat this morning.”

I helped my new friend into one of the chairs around the breakfast table, but when I tried to step away, to speak to the servants, he bunched a hand in my shirt, almost tugging it loose, and didn’t seem inclined to let go. He looked up at me with wide, pleading green eyes, and I couldn’t possibly deny him anything, so I stayed where I was.

Instead of moving off, I turned back to the servants. “I do apologize for the extra company, but my friend will need food as well, and”—I glanced down at him in my black coat and nothing else—“can you send a tailor? He’s going to need some clothes that fit him.”

The coat was fetching on him, but a man couldn’t live his whole life in a stranger’s coat.

The head servant bowed again. “Of course, my prince. I will see to it immediately. Will there be anything else?”

“No, thank you,” I inclined my head to her as she and the others bowed out, before turning back to my guest. I curled a foot around a nearby chair leg and tugged it toward me, so that I could sit down next to him without tugging my shirt free. It was perhaps silly, but it wasn’t terribly important, at least to me.

My mother had always told me that the key to relationships with people was that when something was important to them and not you, you should always give in. It would make them both more inclined to think you reasonable, and more inclined to give in to your wishes when you did find the matter important.

Between my parents, Mother had certainly been the diplomat. Father had been the rash ass who’d involved himself in a plot to kill his brother and gotten both of them killed.

Not that Dima had killed Mother when she hadn’t had a hand in the killing of the king, but not a person in Voronezh questioned that my father’s death had caused my mother’s.

Nearly unique to royal marriages, my parents had loved each other, and she had died of a broken heart.

It was perhaps the only tragedy in my life I did not blame myself for. No, that blame lay entirely upon my father. He had been the one who acted against the king, not thinking of his loved ones or what would become of us if he failed or died. Perhaps I should have done a better job convincing him to change his mind, but he had been the one to do the deed. The one to leave Mother alone in her grief.

A finger tapped against my cheek, and I found the green-eyed stranger watching me with concern, his brows drawn together and bottom lip pulled between his teeth.

I smiled at him and shook my head. “I’m fine. Just musing on things best left in the past.” Time to look forward, not back. I turned toward the table and the spread of bread and jam and meat that the servants had left. Next to me, the man’s stomach grumbled. “Yes indeed. It’s time for breakfast.”

He made no move to take food, so I grabbed a roll and sliced it in half, then picked up the butter, slathering a thick layer atop it. He watched with fascination, still not choosing anything for himself.

It reminded me of—but that was silly.

I was simply worried about Kirian and seeing him everywhere. Still, I topped the butter with jam, then held it out to him. Instead of reaching for it, he leaned forward and took a bite straight from my hand. Before I could think too much on that, his eyes went wide and I had to worry that he found something objectionable about cherry jam. But he didn’t spit it out or exclaim. Instead, he chewed and swallowed with a look of near ecstasy, as though it were the most delicious thing he’d ever set his teeth to.

Even more strangely, after he was finished, he didn’t just chomp down on another bite. No, he motioned with his hand toward me. It took me a moment to understand that he wanted me to eat some. So I took a bite, chewing and smiling through it at him, then offering him more, which he happily took, once again taking a bite straight from my hand. It was strange and intimate and, given his enthusiasm, fun. Some of the most fun I’d had in years. So we spread butter and a different kind of jam on another roll, and another, and tried every kind, going through half the rolls on the table and taking turns feeding each other.

I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I did know that it was . . . it was wonderful.

Chapter 6

Kirian

Ihad never been so full in my life—and not from a hunt. Not from venison or a whole steer or meat at all. Kostya had given me bread smeared with creamy sweetness, and it filled my stomach like nothing ever had.

Perhaps I’d eaten too much, my new human stomach not up to the task when I wanted to try anything and everything Kostya smiled at. The rolls had been unexpectedly delicious, and his laugh sounded sweeter than ever to my human ears.

I heard better as a dragon, but there was something so wonderful about having Kostya beside me, his soft, kind voice right there in my ear. Perhaps I couldn’t hear rodents scampering beneath the floors, but that left more focus for my Kostya.

Everything about my new body seemed arranged to take best advantage of having him near. His voice filled my ears as he told me about the cherries they’d made this delicious jam from. He asked me if I’d ever seen the royal orchards, and he’d seemed pleased when I nodded.

My fingers were so sensitive. Even gripping his shirt, I could feel the warmth radiating from his body. I wanted to bury into it.

The brush of his fingertips against my lips was a salty contrast to the sweetness of the different jams and the creaminess of the fresh butter.

Our lungs were the same size now—we could even breathe in sync, and I tried, watching the subtle rise and fall of his chest. I’d thought I’d known the shape of him, but there was so much left to discover that I’d never seen before.

Even his smile, I’d never seen so close with both eyes at once, and it made my chest squeeze every time it sneaked onto his face.

Kostya was lifting a delicate cup to his lips, his fingers curved so gracefully, when there was a knock on the door.

“Your Highness, the tailor’s arrived.”

Kostya’s head popped up. “Send them to my chambers. We’ll be there momentarily.”

He smiled at his servant, but the look he shared with me was softer. At least, I told myself as much, because I was his and he was mine. That was my smile. My Kostya and my smile.

“Are you finished eating?” He glanced down at my plate. It was smeared with streaks of red jam, but there was no food left on it.

I nodded, but before I could get up, he reached for a piece of cloth and wiped the sticky mess from my fingers and his own.

“Come along, then.”

He stood and offered me his hand. I took it with both of mine. Could I hold his hand forever? He might need it back, but I’d offer him my own to make up for the compromise.

I shuffled my feet through the sitting room. Against the far wall, there was a large, ornate door.

I recognized this one—Kostya’s room.

On the balls of my feet, I bounced up and made a sound. Brow furrowed, Kostya turned toward me. “Everything all right?”

I stared between him and the door to his room. It was his. I’d been inside before, but it’d been so long. Now, on my two hind legs, I could stay with him again. I fit in this place—his place.

Confusedly, Kostya blinked at me, so I pulled him along.

We entered his bedroom, and draperies were pulled back from the wide balcony off the side of the palace. It looked out toward the dragon stables.

Sunlight reflected off the cloud cover and bounced into the room. A tailor was there, laying out swaths of fabric, but I didn’t spare him more than a glance.

This was Kostya’s room.

Nothing was like I remembered it. Once, it’d been full of toys—balls to roll and little carriages and dolls. Now, everything was arranged for a man fully grown. There were tables with carefully stacked missives and books, a set of armor well polished, that I’d never seen Kostya wear.

They had replaced the drapes that Maraht had burned when we were little—the heavy pieces that hung beside windows and made such excellent hiding places.

I’d forgotten about them, though now the memory of heavy velvet sliding over my scaled back was so clear. I wandered over to touch the new ones, and they were even softer than I’d imagined.

With a delighted gasp, I turned to Kostya. He was still frowning.

“The tailor’s brought his own cloth to work with.” His voice lifted at the end, but I didn’t understand what he meant.

I turned to look at the rest of the room.

Kostya’s nest was bigger than I remembered. When last I’d been here, it’d been a small thing with bars to keep us safe inside. They were less effective when I’d been on four legs with claws sharpened and curled for climbing.

Now, Kostya had gotten rid of the bars—gotten rid of the little nest entirely. Instead, the center of the room was taken up by a large palette, cloth hanging all around it in an open frame, rich and covered in blue velvet.

Even with the way to the balcony open, this place smelled just like my Kostya, like he’d spent much of his time here, but unlike my room in the stables, it seemed a place worth staying. There were recesses in the walls where he’d collected a hoard of books and comfortable chairs and everything was soft to the touch.

I wanted to roll around in his things. Just the thought made my blood rush and my skin tingle.

I made a sound, returning to his side to tug on his hand, and Kostya chuckled. “Come on. Let’s see what he can do for you, hm?”

He pulled me toward the tailor, and I followed him. I’d have followed him anywhere.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Vladimir.”

“Of course, Your Highness. I—” The tailor, a short man with dark eyes and gray hair, scowled at me. “Is this who you’d see outfitted today?” He wandered closer to me and plucked at the sleeve of Kostya’s coat. “Is this yours, Your Highness?”

With a huff, I pulled my arm back. The coat was Kostya’s and mine, and I didn’t want a stranger touching it.

Kostya blinked. “It is. Our friend here was outside this morning, rather, um—” His bright blue eyes drifted my way, and there was a depth in his gaze that I didn’t entirely understand. “He was in need of a coat, and a good deal more.”

Vladimir clicked his tongue. “Then let us see what we’re working with.”

He reached for the edges of Kostya’s coat, and I clutched it tighter around myself and squirmed away from him. After a few seconds of grappling, Kostya caught me with a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s all right,” he promised in a soft voice, his free hand extended, palm curved gently toward me. “Do you think you could behave for me, chenok? Vladimir is here to help.”

Chenok? That wasn’t my name.

I was Kirian. Did he not—did he not know me?

Frantically, I searched his face, and I found nothing there but gentle affection.

I’d thought he—he understood. He had to know me. We were bonded by the blood.

My shock left Vladimir time to slip Kostya’s coat off my shoulders. I shivered. The air from outside was cold, but it was more than just that. My heart had dropped into my stomach. The whine in my throat was nothing more than a plea—Kostya had to see me.

“You must have had some night,” Vladimir mused. With my eyes on Kostya, I caught sight of him setting the coat aside on Kostya’s nest from the corners of my vision. “What happened to your clothes?”

I bit my lips, trapping them between my teeth.

“He doesn’t talk,” Kostya answered for me, turning toward the man. “At least he hasn’t so far.”

The tailor’s serious scowl when he stepped toward me made my stomach twist. Did Kostya want me to talk? I wasn’t sure what to say, much less how to stay it.

I wanted to tell him that it was me. His Kirian.

Anguish throbbed in my chest as I stared at him, and Vladimir busied himself all the while, measuring my shoulders, my arms. He draped coarse cloth across my shoulder and I hissed, jerking back.

“He doesn’t like that one,” Kostya said. In a moment, he had another bit of fabric and was lifting it toward me. “What about this?”

I didn’t pull away, so he brushed the fabric against my cheek. With a little huff, I ducked my head.

That one was better, smooth and nice and not so scratchy.

“Make his shirt with silk,” Kostya said, passing the cloth off to the tailor.

“For a stranger?”

The air in the room changed in an instant, Kostya’s turn was slow, his eyebrow dangerously arched. “Are our accounts with you not square, Vladimir?”

“O–of course they are, Your Highness. I’d be happy to make you whatever you wish.” Vladimir’s voice had risen, and he spoke faster. “I only meant, uh, well that I’ve not met your esteemed friend. I am just surprised that there is any lord of Voronezh that I’ve not worked with before.”

Kostya hummed, but he made no answer, and Vladimir was quick to return to work.

He moved my arms where he wanted them, but soon enough, I was covered in clothes like Kostya wore—a loose shirt, trousers with a belt that Vladimir tied around my hips. Kostya even had a servant find me a pair of boots for my feet, though they were hard on the bottom and I couldn’t feel the soft carpet once I’d put them on.

Everything fit well enough, but Vladimir told my Kostya that it would take time to finish anything meant specifically for me. He seemed pleased to be dismissed, and I was glad when he was gone. I wanted Kostya to myself.

The clothes Vladimir had left were strange. The cloth they’d been made from was fine enough, but it still felt wrong against my soft pink skin.

My new coat was heavy, and because it wasn’t warm with Kostya’s body heat and didn’t smell like him, it wasn’t so worth wrapping myself up tightly in it. I shrugged my shoulders, trying to adjust for the weight.

“Is there something wrong?” Kostya asked. He wandered closer and adjusted the fabric on my shoulders.

I was human, and humans wore clothes because they didn’t have thick scales to protect them. I might not like it, but I was with my Kostya, and that was worth anything.

What could I do but shake my head and smile at him?

Chapter 7

Kostya

My guest shook his head strangely, his neck as limp as an overcooked noodle, and even he seemed surprised by the motion, stopping and staring down at his body like it was confusing.

Perhaps he’d eaten some moldy bread. There had been a strange outbreak of illness a few years before that had been traced to moldy rye, and it had involved people acting like drunkards, and some even seeing things that weren’t there.

Still, he seemed entirely harmless, and he’d been nothing but sweet, so Vladimir’s snobbery had been simply that. I didn’t know why the status granted by birth was so important to anyone, given what a complete disaster every member of the royal family had made of their own lives in my father’s generation. Even Uncle Georgiy was alone and seemed largely dissatisfied with his lot. Our father had been a selfish ass who had almost destroyed Voronezh entirely, and Uncle Alexei had been one of the cruelest, most callous men I’d ever had the misfortune to meet. Accidents of birth didn’t mean we were better than anyone.

Traditionally, it was about the blood bonds. People thought that the families of lords were special because of their ability to bond well.

Sometimes children didn’t survive bonds to powerful creatures like dragons. Sometimes, they didn’t even survive bonds to smaller, tamer creatures like horses, or even cats.

Vasilievs, with rare exceptions like Zoya, could bond dragons. We could bond the entire land, as the Vasiliev king had been doing for generations.

The blood witches said the ability to bond was about strength, and we’d never had any reason to disbelieve them, but I’d bonded a dragon, and most days, I didn’t feel all that strong. Rather, I felt like a strong enough wind might topple my entire precarious life to shatter against the frozen mountainsides of Voronezh.

The first Vasiliev king’s bond to the land was what had made Voronezh temperate enough to settle properly, to grow food and build homes, instead of our people remaining nomadic. Bonded to a king, Voronezh was wild and majestic; filled with beauty, but able to sustain life. Before the first land-bonding, it had only been wild. Beautiful, but too dangerous. Too cold for humans to survive most winters, and our people had gone south to avoid the worst of it every year. There had been no temples, no fields, no palace, and no artisans. We had been barely capable of supporting ourselves, let alone producing beauty or joy.

So the people of Voronezh took bonding seriously, and we respected those who could bond themselves to strong allies. Foreigners called it barbaric, risking our children’s lives with blood bonding rituals, but they didn’t understand that in Voronezh, our ancestors had died if they’d shown weakness. It wasn’t about hurting children; it was about giving them a chance to live at all.

I was drawn out of my thoughts by a finger pressed to the tip of my nose, soft and tentative, like a child trying to get my attention. When I glanced up, the stranger was looking at me, eyes as soft as his touch, asking without words what was wrong.

Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have answered. The facts aligned me too close to my father; too close to treason.

I loved my family, and I loved Voronezh, but both were a constant source of frustration. I loved Dima in a way I’d never loved his father—I doubted it had even been possible to love his father. Prince Dima had been soft and sweet and loving, things his father hadn’t ever considered real. King Dima? Well, I shouldn’t even think too long on that, lest I give in to my unkind thoughts and end up like my father.

Even if Misha were angry with me, he wouldn’t deal well with Dima killing me for treason.

So I reached up and took the stranger’s hand, squeezing it and turning back to the room at large. “We’ll have to find you somewhere to sleep, of course. Vladimir will bring the clothes here when they’re ready, so you’ll need to stay close.”

His brows drew together in the center, like something I’d said bothered him, but he still couldn’t seem to find his words. Perhaps it was a permanent disability, his lack of a voice. Our southern neighbors had a specialized language for those who couldn’t hear or speak, so perhaps we could take a cue from them. I was unaware of any people who had been born thus in Voronezh, but perhaps I was simply uneducated on the matter. I would have to look into it.

So I tried to offer him my most reassuring smile and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to lead him back into the parlor.

He turned a longing look back to my bedroom as we left, so I paused. “Do you want to sleep? You could use my bed if you like.” As much as he didn’t smell of alcohol, he didn’t smell much of anything. Fresh grass and something deep and earthy, but nothing unpleasant, as I might’ve expected from a man down on his luck.

He shook his head again, eyes locked once more on me, and offered another tentative smile.

Was it selfish, how much I wanted all that attention? It was intoxicating, having someone hang on my every word and motion. Someone who cared about . . . about me.

A sound in the parlor grabbed my attention, and I turned to find that Zoya was there, sitting at the breakfast table looking shattered. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she was slumped nearly sideways in her seat, staring at a cup of tea instead of drinking it. She glanced up at us, more a motion of her eyes than her body, and smiled at me.

It was a strange smile for my sharp-edged sister, soft and loving, like I was a puppy performing a trick.

“Should I call the healer, Zoya?” I went to her side and lay a hand on her shoulder. I couldn’t feel heat emanating from her, so there was no fever I could detect, but—

“It’s nothing,” she dismissed, giving a yawn without covering her mouth. “I slept poorly. How is your friend?”

“Ah, this is . . . well, I don’t know. I found him wandering outside, and he needed help, so I brought him in.”

For a moment, she stared at me, blinking rapidly. “Outside?”

I nodded and motioned to the window. “Between here and the dragon stable. He was”—I glanced at him and then back, biting my lip—“naked. And seemed confused.”

She continued blinking at me, but before I could get too worried, a wild knocking started on the door to the parlor. “Prince Konstantin?” shouted a familiar voice, followed by a thorough shushing.

We all turned to look at the door, and a moment later, Pavel, the head of our guard opened up, glaring at a familiar figure, his expression threatening violence. The man—one of the heads of the dragon stable—started to open his mouth, but Pavel let out an audible growl and he went quiet.

“My prince, this man is asking to speak to you. Most. Insistently.”

“It is important,” the man hissed back, before turning to me again. His expression was hard, like he was girding himself. His back was straight, his shoulders tense. Whatever he’d come for, I wasn’t going to like it. “The monste—your dragon has escaped the stables. It’s . . . it’s gone.”

In an instant, I was alone on the mountainside in the coldest winter. Every breath was as brittle and sharp as a chip of ice. My heart shuddered and felt like it stopped—the whole world had stopped.

Kirian was . . . gone? It wasn’t possible. Even after a rough night, he’d seemed so happy, and I’d gotten no hint of even mild discomfort from him over the course of the morning. He’d seemed sated and pleased and—

Things he’d never been while in the stables.

Kirian was gone.

He had run away, because I hadn’t taken care of him. Because I had let people hurt my best friend.

The stranger had been next to the stables early, though. I spun to face him, likely looking like a madman, and demanded. “Did you see anything? You were—you were at the stables at dawn. Did you see Kirian?”

Chapter 8

Kirian

Kostya’s panic crashed over me and dragged me down. I heard my name, and I recognized the dragon keeper, and all the joy of finding Kostya right away, of knowing I was safe, shriveled and dried on the vine.

I’d never liked the keeper. He forgot me in the dark far too often and had been one of the men who only edged around whatever room I was in, a spear in his grip to thrust out at me if I got too close.

He’d worked for the Vasilievs for years, which could only mean that King Dmitri liked him and he was no friend of mine.

He’d never given Kostya any trouble, though, always bowing to him and scraping the floor. I did not mind letting my Kostya stand between us then, shrinking down behind him so that the tamer did not notice me and drag me back to the stables. The moment he recognized me, I was finished. They’d never allowed me this much freedom.

But when the tamer’s gaze slid across my face, there was no recognition there. He didn’t know it was me.

Just like Kostya, who had spun and looked my way with wild blue eyes.

When I stared at him, my mouth opening, moving around words that I couldn’t utter and barely understood, he grabbed my arms and demanded, “Have you seen my dragon?”

Frantic, I shook my head. I hadn’t seen him, because I hadn’t rightly seen myself, had I? And I was his dragon, but I also wasn’t—not with two spindly legs that could hardly jump, without wings, without a chest full of flames.

Now, I was something else, but I was still his. I would never abandon him, and there was no way I could allow Kostya to think I had seen his dragon leap into the sky and leave him behind.

I lifted my hand, and Kostya came back to himself enough to let me go. Newly freed, I touched his cheek and willed him to understand, to look into my eyes and see me and know that there was nothing to fear.

Only fear was all I could feel. It raced through my chest. The whole world was wrong. It was an avalanche of nightmares and broken hearts and nothing would ever be all right again, because Kostya’s soul had left him.

That was the panic that dragged me under, and it spiked until I could hardly breathe.

Firmly, I gripped Kostya’s hand, pulling him away from the horrid man with his spears and whips and toward one of the shiny, reflective glasses on the walls. They bounced light into the room from the windows on the far side of the parlor, and when we stood before it, they bounced back our reflections too.

There—I saw his beloved face in that glass, and that must be me beside him. His hair was stark white and beautiful, striking in a way that made him gleam like the stars in a pitch-black sky.

Beside him, mine was brown like earth. I did not know if I was beautiful like this. As a dragon, Kostya often called me beautiful while he ran his hand across my green scales, but I had been special then—a dragon. Now, I was not sure at all.

Perhaps he would not like me so well with pink skin and plain brown hair, but that did not matter. All that mattered, right at that moment, was that I let Kostya see me so that he knew. He would know that I was safe and that the world wasn’t ending.

I held him before the mirror, standing behind him and looking into it while I pressed my hands against his cheeks. I pushed his skin up, trying to curve his lips into one of his heart-stopping smiles.

See me, I begged. Here I am. You have seen me too.

But Kostya only scowled at me in the mirror. His panic was still hammering through my chest, as it had to be hammering through his own.

He gripped my wrists tightly and pulled my hands off his soft skin. Spinning, he glared at me.

I didn’t feel heat behind it, not anger, but he was displeased nonetheless, and faintly annoyed. I’d done wrong. Been a burden. He had bigger things to concern himself with—like his missing dragon.

I’m here.

“Are you mad?” He dropped my hands, pushing my arms back with more force than he needed to.

I staggered back a step. In the face of his dissatisfaction, I shrank into my shoulders and squeezed my eyes shut tight.

Kostya sighed. “I’m sorry. I just—I must find Kirian. I need—” I never learned what he needed.

Already, he was turning away from me, back toward that blasted dragon keeper. He demanded to see my stable; he wanted to know what had gone wrong and how they had allowed me to escape.

Kostya had looked at me, but he had not seen. His fear still choked me.

Terrified, I gaped at Zoya. She could explain everything to Kostya. Then he’d understand. He’d—He’d look at me with delight, and that fear in his chest would disappear.

But before I could plead with her—with eyes or by whining—Zoya listed to the side, her eyelids drooped, and she fell out of her chair into a heap on the floor.

Chapter 9

Kostya

Zoya on the floor of the parlor, looking pale as death, her skin nearly translucent. Except the skin under her eyes, a deep purple almost like a bruise.

And Kirian, missing.

My sweet dragon, who’d never intentionally hurt anyone in his whole life, run away. My terror was echoing through him now, and I could feel it returned to me, but that didn’t mean anything. Right? He wasn’t in danger. He was worried because I was terrified.

And Zoya, my sister, the strongest person I knew, collapsed to the floor of the parlor. I leaned down to scoop her up into my arms, while the dragon keeper grimaced and the stranger fluttered around, looking for something to do.

She felt too light. Having spent more time with her experiments than outdoors, she’d never been enormous or especially muscular, but now, in this situation, it felt ominous.

I laid her across the nearest chaise, putting a pillow carefully under her head and brushing her hair out of her face. Behind me, the stranger had snatched a blanket off the back of the couch and thrust it at me when I turned. I nodded to him and laid it over Zoya.

It was strange, how he hovered. He seemed as worried about her as I was. Most people who knew who—and what—she was, avoided her. Blood witches were something frightening and undesirable unless one was asking for a bonding.

It was perhaps the first time I’d seen anyone treat Zoya with care who wasn’t related to her, and I was immediately charmed by it.

“My prince,” the damned dragon keeper interrupted my thoughts, his voice whiny and irritating. Yes, he had a major problem on his hands, but couldn’t he see that my sister was unwell? That I, far more than he, was worried about Kirian?

I turned a narrow-eyed glare on him, angry as I almost never was. What the hell did he want from me? Half of this mess was his fault. He was responsible for the dragons’ care and feeding, and he wanted me to fix the fact that he’d lost one? That my best friend had escaped under his watch?

But also . . . he’d escaped. My best friend had been in a place where he’d felt a need to escape. What kind of friend was I, that I had allowed him to be held prisoner like that for so long?

The stranger plopped down onto the floor next to Zoya, leaning in to look closely at her face, lifting her eyelids like a healer might. He seemed more confused than a healer would have, but I couldn’t fault that, either.

Seeing Zoya weak was unthinkable.

The dragon keeper started whining again about the king’s displeasure for “the monster” having gone missing, and my patience abruptly ran out.

Until I’d been frightened, Kirian’s presence in my mind had been calm. Happier than usual. He was out of the dragon stable, and he was happy about it. If he never came back, and was happy that way, how could I begrudge him that freedom? What kind of best friend would it make me?

Imagining my life without him felt like a knife to the heart, but in that moment, I made my decision.

I turned to the man from the stables and pointed at the door. “Get out.”

His whining about the king cut off abruptly, his eyes rounding as he stared at me. “What?”

I clenched my jaw and firmed my stance. I wouldn’t have him questioning me just because I was usually nicer than this. Even a complete stranger could see that Zoya’s health was more important than anything else in this moment. Once again, I pointed at the door. “Out.”

“You heard the prince,” Pavel said, rapping his mailed fist against the doorjamb. “You’re done here.”

“But, Your Highness—”

Without any further action on my part, Pavel marched over and grabbed the stable man’s arm. “Can’t you see Princess Zoya is unwell? Do you think your problems are more important than a member of the royal family? Handle it. Find Prince Konstantin’s dragon. Do your job.” He yanked the man toward the doorway, turning toward it and shouting as he went. “Summon the healer, Lev. Princess Zoya requires his presence immediately.”

He didn’t even look back at the stable man, and I took a cue from that, turning my back on him and returning to my sister. Kirian was well. Zoya was the one who had collapsed at the breakfast table. “Hadn’t slept well” my ass.

I reached down and squeezed the stranger’s shoulder in thanks. Maybe it hadn’t been deliberate, but he’d reminded me of what mattered most. If Kirian was happy and Zoya was sick, then it wasn’t even a choice between them. Zoya needed me.

I took her cup of tea from the table and brought it over next to her, for when she woke. Or perhaps I should ask for new tea, so she could have something fresh and hot. Borscht? Something healthy and invigorating. Perhaps her favorite chocolates.

In the end, I simply collapsed to the floor next to the stranger, leaning my head against Zoya’s hip and staring at the two of them. Why was I always useless in an emergency? I couldn’t heal, had no magic, and hadn’t ever managed to forestall violence, even among the people I loved.

I hadn’t helped Kirian escape his cell, which he’d clearly wanted for years. Hadn’t even noticed whatever it was that was wrong with Zoya till it was too late. Hadn’t managed to stop my father from his folly.

What was the point of me?

Chapter 10

Kirian

Zoya did not wake, but her breathing was steady and soft. Her eyelids fluttered occasionally.

She would be fine. For my Kostya, she had to be fine.

At least the dragon keeper had left. I liked the guard who had shown him out. I’d especially liked when Kostya had commanded him to leave, his voice firm, anger flashing through him.

That was a rare thing, but I liked the feeling of it. Anger was better than fear. It felt stronger.

Though that sense of strength soon crumbled. Kostya rested his head against Zoya’s hip, and the sorrow that fell across his face resonated in my chest. It stole my breath.

My Kostya felt so small, so helpless. What could I do for him? He liked to fly, to get away from the castle, but I couldn’t take him into the sky on these spindly little legs.

He wouldn’t even want to go, if it meant leaving Zoya here when she was unwell.

I did my best to fill our bond with comfort and surety. Perhaps he didn’t see me, didn’t recognize me as his own, but surely I could do that much. If he didn’t know that all was well and would continue to be well, I did. All Kostya had to do was stay strong until Zoya woke, and he could lean on me.

I reached over to squeeze his hand. His fingers were warm, and they gripped my own. He met my eye with a weak smile.

“She’ll be okay,” he whispered.

Ardently, I nodded. When I left my hand around his, he didn’t pull away.

We stayed like that until a healer arrived. Then, Kostya stood to make space, and he waved a servant forward and instructed her to have a room prepared for me.

I didn’t want to leave Kostya. He was hurt, and no one else could see it. They couldn’t feel it the way I could. No one else would take care of him.

I pulled away from the servant when she reached for my arm, a choked sound high in my throat. Kostya, who had already been returning to the healer and Zoya, turned to me with a strange frown on his face.

For a moment, I thought that he’d finally sensed something between us, but his expression softened. He stepped close enough to set his hand on my shoulder.

“Zoya needs rest and healing now.”

I knew that. I did. I’d be quiet and sit there and make no trouble.

I’d hold his hand some more so he didn’t worry too much.

But there was something in Kostya’s expression that seemed shuttered, closed off from me. I could feel him, but I couldn’t reach him.

“You’ll be all right?” he said.

Did he really want me to go? I hesitated. He was holding it together, and if I put him through anything more, he could shatter.

“When she’s better, you can come check on her. How does that sound?”

I nodded. At least he wasn’t sending me away forever. I’d come back. It wasn’t like I’d never been parted from Kostya before. He needed time for his family. I could be patient.

“So we’ll see you very soon,” he promised.

I let the servant lead me out of the Vasiliev quarters and down the hallway.

The doors were closer together down this corridor, the less important families in the palace put up here.

When I’d been a hatchling and Kostya no bigger, there’d been other children here. They’d always looked at Kostya with envy. He had a dragon. He was the first-born Vasiliev prince.

Until Dima and Dasha were born, he might’ve inherited the throne one day.

But he had always been apart from those other children, always lonely, especially when we weren’t together.

I was trapped in that feeling, or I might’ve noticed a lord stepping out of his room and straight into our path.

“Where are you off to so quickly, Kasia?” a man asked as the servant girl came up short. He tipped his head to the side, but her chin stayed lowered. She was avoiding meeting his eye.

He wore a black velvet kaftan that reminded me of something Kostya might’ve put on. It was embroidered with silver. His hair fell around his shoulders in soft coils, and a sparse beard grew on his face.

The way his lips twitched seemed cruel, almost predatory, though it was only a little dog that followed him out of his quarters. He wouldn’t even be a mouthful to a dragon.

“I—” she flinched.

Though I wasn’t bonded to Kasia, I knew fear well enough. I also knew violence and dread and all the horrible, creeping things that made their way through the shadows of this palace.

The man reached for her. She shrank back. And a growl tore from my throat.

I stepped around her, my hand locked around the man’s wrist, my eyes narrowed in anger. I missed my teeth, sharp enough to tear through any man, but I bared these flat ones all the same.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, his uninterested gaze finally landing on me.

Kasia had pressed against the back of my arm, taking my wrist to draw me back.

“Leave it, Zakhar,” she said. I’d swear I knew the name, but I couldn’t place it. How would I know? It’d been decades since I’d walked these halls. “He’s Prince Konstantin’s guest.”

Something flashed in the man’s eyes then, like hunger and rage—a combination that didn’t make sense. He was not upset that I’d placed myself between himself and Kasia. He’d not even been overly bothered when I’d growled at him.

But at the mention of my Kostya, he felt something.

“Is he now?” Zakhar looked me over again, and the trail of his eyes up and down my body made me feel oily and wrong.

“Indeed,” Kasia said, sticking out her chin. “And he’s somewhere to be, so you must excuse us.”

With a sneer, he stepped back, extending his arm.

Kasia tugged me past him.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she whispered when we were around the corner and out of earshot.

Maybe she was right, but I couldn’t regret it.

Something about that man didn’t sit well with me.

Kasia brought me to narrow hallway. It was filled with people and the scent of sweat. The heat of this place, the darkness, was almost as bad as the stable. There were too many people. They squeezed past each other in the hallway and shuffled me toward the wall.

“We’re to put Prince Konstantin’s guest up,” Kasia announced when she approached a woman with a large bundle of linens under her arm.

She paused and looked me over. “Strong arms, this one. Good for work.”

When Kasia didn’t reply, the woman shrugged and jerked her head. “Come along. We’ll find you a room.”

Navigating the hallway was a little easier with this new guide. She seemed to command some respect here, and people cleared the way for her.

In time, we came to a wooden door, slightly ajar in its frame. She pushed it open with her hip and handed me a sheet from the top of the bundle she carried.

“This one’s free,” the lady said to me with a wry smile. “Paul had the plague. Didn’t make it. There’s new bedding. We burned all of his things, so you should be fine.”

There was a cot pushed against the wall, a frayed quilt covering something lumpy. In the corner was a bucket, and high up on the wall, a tiny, grimy window let in a bit of light.

I hated this place. It was nothing like Kostya’s room, bright and full of his things and his smells. This place smelled like filth and people.

I blinked at the woman, noticing for the first time that Kasia had taken the earliest opportunity to make her escape. She shrugged. “If there’s nothing else . . . ”

There was plenty else. I wanted her to take me back to Kostya. I wanted to tell him, tell her, tell all of them, that this wasn’t right.

But I couldn’t say any of that, so she turned and left me there in the middle of that little room, where there was nothing.

I’d gone from one cell to another, but this one was even smaller.

The one benefit was that there was no lock. After a few minutes of sitting there listening to the bustling in the hallway, I opened the door and popped my head out. A round man was marching down the hallway and banged into me. My shoulder hit the wall, and I flinched.

“Watch it, boy,” he snipped.

That was it. Too many people. I couldn’t breathe. I needed to get out.

I was suffocating, gasping, all down the hallway and the narrow staircase. But the second I was outside, my lungs filled with air that was cool and sweet.

I shut my eyes and dropped back against the stone wall. The door I’d escaped was discreet, probably meant for more servants.

I couldn’t go back into the palace—not without Kostya, and Zoya needed him right then. But outside the palace? Well, this was the first opportunity that I’d had to explore it on my own.

Once I’d caught my breath, I followed the sweet smell on the air. Something about it was familiar, and each whiff spread through me like a calming hum from Kostya.

The world truly did look different from so much closer to the ground, so I didn’t recognize the herb garden until I got into it. It was a round, flat space, the lawn carefully trimmed. Herbs of every kind grew around the sides.

When Kostya hadn’t been able to take me out for a flight, we would come here, and he would clean my scales and tell me what was going on in the palace.

We’d spent many wonderful mornings here, because the only people that bothered us were the kitchen servants, and sometimes, they brought Kostya snacks that made him smile and even spared a loaf of crusty bread for me.

This part of the palace was quiet—far better than anywhere I’d been save for Kostya’s own room.

Perhaps I’d make it my own. The grass was soft, and napping on it had never bothered me before.

I folded my legs and sank onto the lawn. Under my palm, the grass was sharper, but I didn’t mind. The bed upstairs looked none too comfortable.

Here, I could lean back on my hands and see the whole sky.

Chapter 11

Kostya

The healer said Zoya was fine; she simply seemed to be exhausted.

I knew blood bindings tired her out sometimes, but I hadn’t thought she’d had anything strenuous to do in the last week. I’d seen her eat an entire platter of pastries then sleep for two days after binding a little girl to a dragon, but this had been different than that. She hadn’t warned us that she was performing a major binding, and had tried to pass it off as having slept poorly, so whatever it was, she didn’t want to talk about it.

The blood witch who had tied Dima to the land had died.

Was Zoya trying something she oughtn’t?

I shook my head, attempting to wash the thought from my mind. At the very least, if Zoya was doing something ethically questionable, unlike our father, she’d had the kind instinct to leave me out of it, so out of it I’d stay. If she wanted to share, I’d be there for her, as I always was.

For the moment, the healer said, all we could do was let her rest and make sure she got plenty of food.

So first, I arranged with the servants to try to wake her every few hours and feed her before letting her go back to sleep. Then, I started the long walk out to the stable.

I wasn’t looking forward to anything about it. Not seeing the stable master, after dismissing him in anger earlier. He’d deserved it, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be consequences. Not seeing Kirian’s empty cell, where he both should and shouldn’t be waiting for me.

Kirian was happy again.

It was easy to picture him lying on a flat rock somewhere high in the mountains, sunning his belly and looking up at the clouds, grinning his toothy dragon grin. It was as close to perfection as we’d gotten since we were children, those stolen afternoons in the mountains when we would sneak away. As close to happy as I had been since the day of the accident.

Strange how Dasha and Adorjan had largely gotten over it, and Kirian and I never would.

“It was just an accident,” Dasha had told me once, with a dismissive little laugh. As though blinding her had been nothing of importance. As though it hadn’t changed all of our lives forever. Still, somehow neither of them blamed me for anything. Nor did Kirian, of course. Like me, he blamed himself for every ill in the world.

He was a part of me, after all. My very soul.

Missing him cut through me like a knife as I entered the stable, knowing he wasn’t there.

I walked the hall to his cell like a condemned man going to execution. The stable hands were cleaning his cell, scrubbing it as though they could erase any sign he’d ever existed, and that would make up for losing him. Once more, I had to shove down my anger. Perhaps it wasn’t their fault he’d gone missing. Kirian was cleverer than most any person I knew, so if he’d wanted out, he was going to find a way.

If they hadn’t treated him like a beast, though. Hadn’t called him “the monster.” If only the accident had never happened. How different might all of our lives have been?

One of the younger stable hands noticed my entrance and slunk over toward me. “Any word of Kirian, my prince?”

I shook my head and couldn’t even meet his eye.

He ducked his own head and bowed to me. “I am sorry, sir. Kirian never did none of us no harm. He was just as scared as we were, mostly of the king and Danik. I hope he’s okay.”

My eyes stung, and I nodded to him as I turned away. It wouldn’t do to have anyone see me overcome by emotions. They needed to have faith that the Vasilievs were strong, even in the face of the worst hardship. A tantrum was a better response to difficulty than tears, my father had always said when I’d shown emotion as a child. A tantrum might be childish, but it maintains strength. Tears are weakness, and the people should never see your weakness.

He’d held to it, too. He’d gone to his execution with his head high, nary a tear in sight. Mother, too, had held her emotions on the subject in public, even as she’d stopped eating and wasted away.

I was the only weak link in the Vasiliev family, so I’d learned to hold back, always. Instead, I clasped my hands together behind myself and went back the way I’d come. I searched the other dragon pens, where the youngsters frolicked, or the adult dragons lived in a strict hierarchy with Danik and Maraht ruling over them.

More Maraht, really.

Danik was sitting alone in a corner, glaring at everyone, his eyes darker than I’d remembered. Meanwhile, Maraht sat in the middle of the enormous room, playing with one dragon, then having something like a conversation with another. A third, he smacked across the face, but somehow the gesture seemed good-natured, and the dragon didn’t react in anger.

Grusha, Evgeny’s tiny mink, was sitting atop him in a tiny, mink-sized saddle, as though he spent quite a lot of time in the dragon stable.

That Maraht was present meant Misha was in residence, but he hadn’t come to see me. I tried not to let it hurt. I’d kept our father’s complicity in the king’s murder from him. He was right to be angry with me.

I was still angry with myself.

But the loss of Kirian made it that much bigger.

Everyone had left me, one way or another. It was my own fault, but being alone was . . . not for me. I didn’t know how Zoya handled it so well all the time, cooped up in her lab with only her own company. Being a blood witch, she didn’t even have the soothing presence of a soul-bonded creature. Her blood could only be used as the glue in a bond, not as half of her own bond.

I sighed and left the dragons to their own little community, playing and posturing and . . . happy.

Wandering back across the grass toward the palace, I let my mind wander. I wasn’t meant to be alone, but the palace was full of life. I could go to court. Drink tea with the courtiers, eat my meals in the great hall, and try to socialize with people who weren’t just my family.

The problem was that same strength my father had pushed upon me. When I was with them, they expected me to be Prince Konstantin, not just soft-hearted, pastry-loving, romance-reading Kostya. I had to put on a show for them, and be someone who wasn’t me. Someone . . . someone I didn’t like very much. Cold, upright, arrogant, and most of all, strong. I was good at it. I’d been told more than once that I would make a better king than my cousin, as dangerous as the sentiment was.

Looking at the way the crown weighed on Dima, I was glad it hadn’t fallen to me. I held no envy for his position.

In the courtyard, someone called my name. Part of me wanted to keep walking, ignore it, and focus on my own problems, but that wasn’t allowed. I was a prince, and my life didn’t belong to me.

I turned to find one of the very last people I wanted to see, Zakhar Laskin, his little dog trailing after him. The thing seemed perpetually clueless, trailing around after him, as unintelligent as any other dog, nothing like a soul creature at all. It had always made me mistrust Zakhar on some level, that his soul creature seemed foolish when the man himself was clever in that nasty, cruel, courtly way.

“Your Highness,” he said, his smile ingratiating as he approached. “I wanted to offer my concern for Princess Zoya. I heard she’s unwell.”

Odd, but I supposed not terribly shocking. Zakhar had always . . . well, he seemed to think we were friends. He bullied Dima for being effeminate when we were children. Supposedly, my cousin’s penchant for growing flowers and his resulting delight were taken as a weak point, and in Voronezh, that meant something to be snuffed out or exploited. In retaliation Misha had nearly smashed his face in, leaving him with his nose and both cheekbones broken. After checking on Dima and Dasha, I’d stopped my brother, dragged him away, and taken Zakhar to the healer.

Not for Zakhar, of course, but to try to mitigate the trouble my brother was going to get into for the incident. He’d gotten quite the lashing from our father for beating the son of a noble for something so “unimportant” that Dima “should have handled himself,” but if Misha had killed him, it would have been worse.

Somehow, for some reason, since that day, Zakhar seemed to think he and I were friends. As though I would ever be friends with anyone who thought less of a man for the crime of being kind and sweet.

I’d have given anything to have that Dima back again, and Zakhar? Well, Zakhar, I could do entirely without.

Still, it wouldn’t do to be rude without cause, so I inclined my head. “My thanks, Lord Laskin. I’ll relay your concerns to her when she’s feeling better. You know how it is with blood witches. The magic is tiring.”

He flinched away at the mere thought, as most people did. As I’d hoped he might.

Perhaps, in fact, I could get rid of him entirely by continuing that path, with or without knowing that I was right. “Apparently she was doing some major working of magic last eve, and—”

He turned his head, as though he’d heard something of importance behind him, then bowed deeply to me. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness, but I hear my father calling. Perhaps another time. I’ll see you at court?”

“Indeed,” I agreed. I wasn’t going to say that I’d rather bathe in acid than go to court to talk to him, so a meaningless platitude would have to do.

With that, he turned and scurried away. His prim little dog stood and stared at me with a cocked head for a moment, then turned to saunter after him.

I went back to walking, still with no direction in mind. Without other orders, my feet led me down to the palace garden, to the corner where the cooks grew their herbs. In my youth, it’d been a riot of flowers. The day Dima and Dasha were born, I remembered running through it back from the dragon stables with father and Kirian to the sound of ringing bells, triumphant over the new prince and princess, even when their mother wouldn’t recover from bringing them into this world. That day, it was like blood lilies burst to life all around us, dense and velvety and crimson.

Now, the palace gardens grew food and the rare dry decorative shrub. The herb garden still smelled sweet as ever, despite the way flowers in the kingdom were failing as a whole.

I’d taken Kirian there so often. The cooks, unlike almost everyone else in the palace, had never been frightened of him. The head cook had once told me a dragon was little more than an enormous oven, after all, with all that bulk and the fire in their bellies, and she dealt with one of those all day.

Kirian loved them.

The twisting in my own belly intensified as the herb plants came into view. How was Kirian? Had he eaten? Was he safe? Did he have somewhere to sleep that was warm eno—

The stranger was there, lying in the grass next to the herb patch, staring at the sky. He looked so calm and peaceful, and something about it made the stab in my gut seem . . . less, somehow. Like his mere presence was a balm for my flayed soul.

Part of me wanted to recoil. He wasn’t family, so I shouldn’t be taking comfort in his presence when so much was wrong—but also, I didn’t have the strength to stop myself. With the world falling apart around me, I needed that serenity. Needed something to stop myself from crumbling.

He had a handful of grass and stems and leaves that he’d twisted into a sort of makeshift wreath, and he perked up when he saw me, his whole face transforming into something so exquisite it took my breath away. He was a beautiful man regardless, but when he smiled, that beauty was almost inhuman.

His golden-brown hair shone in the sunlight with blond highlights, and his green eyes had flecks of the same molten gold. Green eyes, just the shade of Kirian’s beautiful scales.

I sighed, the breath going out of me as I plopped down beside him, accepting the proffered verdant wreath. It was a bit messy, the stalks of grass uneven like he hadn’t made one of these since childhood and his fingers had forgotten how to do it, but somehow more charming for that.

Everything was all right. I could take comfort in this, and it didn’t make me a bad person. It didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get back to work soon. I just needed a moment to collect myself, and being in the stranger’s calm, soothing presence was helping like nothing else had.

“It’s been a hard day,” I admitted to him, letting the weakness escape me just as I’d have told Kirian if he’d been there. “I’ll be fine, but it’s been . . . a lot.”

He smiled at me, the expression tinged with sadness, and dropped his hand down to wrap around mine, squeezing it. There was strength in his hands, impressively so, and it was reassuring like nothing else had been since I’d woken in the morning.

Things would be okay. Zoya would be fine. Misha would forgive me eventually. And Kirian . . . well, Kirian would be happy. I would see to that, even if it meant letting him fly free into the mountains forever.

Chapter 12

Kirian

Kostya had found me in the herb garden. That had to mean something. He’d sat with me and all that sadness that’d overwhelmed him only moments before had eased.

I almost thought that he’d recognized me as his own. But he hadn’t. Not yet.

Still, he spoke to me, and that made it better.

It even made it easier to go back into the palace when the sun began to set and the air turned colder. I shivered, and Kostya led the way inside, taking me the long way around through wider hallways lit with fresh candles and lined with mirrors and paintings and tapestries—those ones that’d survived Maraht’s youth anyway.

Though the servants’ passages might’ve been closer, they weren’t the ones most familiar to my Kostya. I hadn’t known them well either.

And still, somehow, we wound up back at the twisting stair at the end of a corridor filled with finer things and finer people.

“Can you make it back all right?”

I pressed my lips between my teeth and twisted my fingers in the cuffs of his coat, which I still wore while one was being made for me. He’d given me a room and a warm coat, and that was all very kind. I simply wished that he could see that the only thing I really wanted was his company. I wished that I could tell him that. Tell him everything. Promise him that the very last thing I’d do in this life would be to leave his side.

But that was what he’d asked of me, so I nodded, and I trudged up the stairs to find the small, dark room in the tight, dark corridor that smelled of too many people and too much staleness.

My bed was as uncomfortable as it looked, but I sat in the middle of it, my legs bunched up, and I buried my nose in Kostya’s coat. It smelled of him, and a little like grass from laying in the herb garden.

No matter how I tried, how many hours I let tick past, I couldn’t sleep there. In the room next to mine, someone snored loudly. Their farts rippled through the air.

Farther down the hall, a bed banged against the wall, over and over until a muffled cry ushered in a new stillness.

Beneath the floorboards, rats scampered about on their claws. I hated this place. I even missed the brimstone scent of dragons I rarely saw.

Before the sun rose, there was a harsh knock on my door. It rattled the wood in the frame, and before I could answer, the door swung open and a gruff, jowly man stuck his head inside.

“You’re new,” he snipped.

I stared at him, unsure how to answer.

“You’ll make yourself useful. There are pots to empty, floors to sweep. We can’t have you loafing about all day.”

He sounded angry. My shoulders stiffened toward my ears.

“Get up!” he snapped.

I scrambled out of bed, but he was already gone. The door banged shut when he marched away.

Useful? I didn’t mind making myself useful, but I only cared to be useful to Kostya.

If these people wanted to take me away from him—no, I wouldn’t allow it. I had to find him.

It’d been hours since Zoya had collapsed. She’d be better now, and she’d tell Kostya all that he was missing. Perhaps he’d be disappointed to have lost a dragon, but he would have me. I would have him. That would be better than this, surely.

I left my room, keeping my chin up and trying not to look like I’d lost the thread. Everyone seemed to have something to do, and so long as I looked like I did, they didn’t pay me much mind.

Outside the servants’ quarters, the palace was much quieter. Unless there was something wrong, I didn’t often see Kostya so early in the morning. I simply didn’t realize anyone woke as early as the servants did.

It took some wrong turns before I found a familiar corridor, but unlike the rest, this one wasn’t empty.

There were two men in the hallway—one in long, dark robes. I thought he was the healer from the day before, but I wasn’t close enough to see clearly.

The other was Kostya’s uncle, Prince Georgiy, who rode Gerasim—an enormous green dragon who’d terrified me since I’d hatched, though I’d grown in his image.

He grabbed the healer’s arm and leaned in. I had to creep forward to hear him.

“I want to know the minute she’s woken. Voronezh requires a bond. Without her, we are impotent.”

“My prince, there’s nothing to be done. Her power is depleted. It’ll be weeks before she is well enough to perform that kind of bonding. There’s no rushing it. The attempt alone would kill her now.”

“We cannot wait for that fool to find us out. Get her up and on her feet.”

My own boots must’ve scuffed across the carpet, because the pair froze, and Prince Georgiy rounded on me. Two paces, and he was grabbing me by Kostya’s coat, jerking me forward before he slammed me back against the wall.

Air rushed from my lungs and my head spun, too hazy to make sense of his demands.

“Who the fuck are you?” he snarled.

The healer had gone pale. While I blinked at him, he excused himself and rushed off.

“Are you stupid?” The prince lifted me enough to shove me back again. “What did you hear?”

“Uncle?” A quiet, rumpled, warm voice filled the corridor, and I looked past Prince Georgiy’s straight silver hair to see my Kostya, standing there and scowling. “What are you doing?”

He shook off the last of his sleep at once, surging forward and pulling Prince Georgiy’s hands off of me.

“Do you know this man?” Georgiy demanded, straightened before showing any weakness at being chastened by his nephew.

“I do,” Kostya insisted, his hands pressed against my chest, seeming to search out any hurt. A mere touch from him, and all was right in the world, so he needn’t worry. Prince Georgiy didn’t matter when my Kostya was there. “He’s my—” Kostya grimaced a moment before turning to his uncle. “I found him wandering the grounds yesterday. He seems unwell. I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”

“But you’ve no idea who he is?” Georgiy’s eyes narrowed.

I hadn’t thought of it as strange until that moment. A prince of Voronezh, taking in a stranger wandering outside?

My Kostya would always care for me, always find me, always keep me safe. It’d seemed only natural for him to do it even when he didn’t recognize me.

But Georgiy’s angry dismissal, the momentary confusion that had Kostya’s brow furrowing, said that it wasn’t.

For the briefest moment, I feared Kostya would see something wrong with all of this and send me away.

I should have known better.

Instead, Kostya huffed, planting himself firmly between the two of us. “He does not even speak.”

Georgiy glared past him. “He’s going to get himself hurt, wandering around where he doesn’t belong.”

The way his words dripped with venom made them sound less like a warning than a threat. I grabbed Kostya’s wrist and pulled him back against me.

Georgiy’s gaze flicked back to Kostya, and he smiled, though it was strange and bitter and untrue. “You should keep a better eye on him.”

Prince Georgiy marched away, and still, I held Kostya there, close, because that was where he belonged.

Chapter 13

Kostya

When I was a child, and Misha still a babe in our mother’s arms, King Alexei had arranged a marriage for my uncle.

There had been whispers about why. About the schism between the Vasiliev brothers. About Georgiy’s reputation for flitting from one bed to another, many of those beds’ inhabitants already married. About Alexei’s growing paranoia—though since he had been murdered, had it truly been paranoia?

I had met Daniil a handful of times. He’d been small and timid, quiet. Sweet. At their betrothal luncheon, he’d sat with me and my mother, paid attention to me when my father and his brothers had less than no interest in the only child of the family old enough to carry on a conversation.

When Daniil had fallen from Gerasim’s back in flight, I had hidden in my room and cried for days. He’d been an adult, yes, but for a moment, I’d thought perhaps I had a friend other than Kirian for the first time in my life.

Then, the whispers about Daniil’s death had started.

They weren’t as varied as the rumors about the marriage. They only went one way: Georgiy wanted rid of his husband, and he got what he wanted by shoving the young man off his dragon.

I had no proof this rumor was true. I had no proof—or even a real reason to believe—that Uncle Georgiy had been involved in my father’s plot to murder Alexei. Before that day, I’d very deliberately not put much thought into it. The amount of family I had dwindled too much, too fast already, and I didn’t want to give myself a reason to lose any more.

But seeing him there, his hands on the stranger, anger in his eyes, made me feel like the world had gone out from under me, where Georgiy was concerned. Like I was seeing the same garden from the other side, but the back of it was dead and rotten, covered only by a thin facade of wildflowers from one angle.

The stranger was an innocent. He smiled and tried to help and offered little trinkets of twisted grass, and Georgiy was there, what, threatening him? Why? To what end?

I watched my uncle storm off, but felt as though I was doing it with new eyes.

And suddenly, I didn’t want to leave the stranger behind. He was so near helpless that if I did, someone like Georgiy might come along and hurt him again. More?

No, I needed to take him with me. Voronezh was a dangerous place for anyone who didn’t know how to handle themself.

So I turned my back on the corridor my uncle had flounced down. “You can come with me,” I told him. The way his eyes lit from within was . . . beautiful. So green they almost glowed. “I need to try to . . . to find Kirian.”

His face fell a little at that, but I couldn’t blame him for it. Not with how whispers traveled the whole of Voronezh calling Kirian an enormous, vicious beast, monstrous even among dragons. Not with how dragons themselves were terrifying to most people who weren’t bonded to one.

I’d always thought fear of dragons was sensible, for most people. Not to say that most dragons should be feared, but as tiny, soft, squishable, easily burned humans, being nervous about a creature that could kill you without even knowing what it had done was a rational thing. Most people were frightened of snakes as well, and in the southern climes, those disturbing eight-legged many-eyed creatures they called spiders.

I couldn’t say I liked those creatures very much. Too small. Too easy to overlook. Not like a big, solid dragon. At least if you were going to die by dragon, it was a death that was impossible to miss coming.

I finished patting the stranger down, looking for injuries as though perhaps Georgiy might have hurt him with his threats, but found nothing. Well, nothing except a well-formed man beneath my hands. His chest was firm, with layers of muscle as though he worked hard for his living. Or perhaps like Misha, he spent a lot of time in the practice yard, with his sword.

The thought of the handsome man with a sword . . . well, that wasn’t the kind of sword I pictured Misha practicing with. I didn’t need to know about my brother’s conquests.

I dropped my hands from his chest, but before I’d even finished pulling away, he was stepping forward, into my space, wrapping his own hands around one of my arms. Like maybe he was afraid I’d leave him behind.

I smiled at him and turned, not pulling away, but headed toward the stables. For one of the only times in my life, not the dragon stables, but the one for horses.

Like every nobleman in Voronezh, I knew how to ride a horse. I’d been rather good at it as a teenager, able to give Misha competition for his racing and Dima for his jumping on the occasion we’d bothered with such frivolous, southland pursuits. Vladislava from the stables had taught each of us well, even when it’d seemed redundant—why would we ever choose to ride a horse regularly when we had dragons?

I hadn’t done much of it since then, never seeing the point as an adult. I had too many responsibilities, and no time for pretty, genteel hobbies.

It felt as though Voronezh had been on the brink of collapse for more than a decade. Since my fucking irresponsible ass of a father had murdered his callous bastard brother.

And now my brother, sister, cousins, and myself had to try to hold the land together as best we could, even as broken as we all were.

The stable master seemed shocked to see me, proving my own point. “Prince Konstantin! I didn’t . . . that is, we aren’t prepared for—”

I waved him off as I stepped in front of him. “I didn’t warn you; that isn’t your fault. If you have them, I’m in need of two horses for the day.”

“Of course, my prince,” he answered instantly, bowing low, then spinning to bark orders at his hands. Get this and that and the other, ready two horses for Prince Konstantin right away. I felt a bit of an ass, probably putting him off his schedule, but right now, this had to take precedence.

If Dima knew Kirian was missing, he’d likely do something drastic. And as much as Kirian himself had mostly been happy, there had been moments of other feelings. Worry and fear and startlement, all of which added up to make me wonder if he hadn’t left of his own volition. He wasn’t unintelligent, he’d have known he was kidnapped, but I couldn’t blame him for not being upset about a kidnapping, if it also gave him more freedom than he ever had at my side.

I didn’t want to be trapped at the palace always. Why would I expect him to want that? More than once, I’d been envious of Zoya being a blood witch and therefore unable to be in contention to be king. It was a double-edged sword, that inability to have a soul animal, but who was to say which edge was sharper without having felt the bite of each?

It only took a few moments for the stable hands to have a pair of fine horses saddled and ready for us, but that was when the next problem reared its head.

My sweet stranger took one look at the horses, made a strange, high squeaking sound as he stared up at the nearest one like it was a dragon set to eat him, and shoved his whole body behind me. Then he froze for a second, realized what he’d done, and started trying to pull me away, like he . . . like he wasn’t just hiding from danger, but trying to protect me as well.

“They’re just horses,” I said to him, turning to take his hand and squeeze it, then extending one arm to the closest horse. They were well-trained, the horses in the royal stable, and it didn’t so much as twitch or nicker at the motion.

My stranger didn’t seem convinced, though. How had he never been on a horse? Perhaps there had been an accident. Perhaps that was what was wrong with him. I was ready to call the whole thing off—and what, walk out to try to find a sign of Kirian’s possible abductors?—when he slowly, hesitantly followed me in my approach to the horse.

I ran my hand down its velvety nose, then took his hand, and replicated the motion. He jerked, almost yanking his hand out of my grasp, but let me finish, then stared at the horse with shock. Like the thing just standing there was astounding.

Gently, so very softly, he ran his hand along its nose, staring at it like a child who’d never seen such an enormous beast.

How was that the most heart-warming thing I’d experienced in . . . blood and earth, in years?

Still, when it came time to mount the horses, he hesitated. So I made a command decision and held out my hand to him, pulling him up in front of me onto my horse. They were palace stallions, and the folk of Voronezh raised only the sturdiest sort of horses. None of those delicate, spindly-legged southern horses. Perhaps Voronezh didn’t have the fastest horses, but we did have horses who could easily carry two men. Who could pull a plow. Who could survive the winter.

It was strange, riding with another person in the saddle, when I was used to a bigger saddle, a bigger creature, and no one riding with me, but it was fine. Having my stranger in front of me was just fine.

Chapter 14

Kirian

The world had changed.

Though reason said that it was me who’d changed and nothing else, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d been thrust into a strange new place, a Voronezh I’d never seen. One I could only view from a few feet above the ground instead of leagues.

And everything down here was terrifying.

It wasn’t as though I’d never seen a horse before. I had, flying above the stable yard or from afar. The servants at the dragon stables were hesitant to let me around other dragons, much less smaller creatures they didn’t fully intend for me to eat.

But truth told, it wasn’t the newness of the creature that startled me.

It was enormous, and it struck me then how very small I was. How vulnerable.

If the horse could breathe fire, lurched forward to attack Kostya, what could I do to keep him safe?

What was the point of me if I couldn’t do that?

Zoya would never leave him at risk. She might frighten me, make my blood run cold, but she loved Kostya and Misha both. But surely, she hadn’t thought this through.

I was meant to protect Kostya, to carry him anywhere he needed to go. Now, we had to rely on a horse and there was very little that I could do to keep him safe.

When Kostya held his hand out to me, I was caught between starving for the soft warmth of his touch against my fresh skin, and horror that all the strength I’d ever had was gone, and that I could not care for him half so well as I had done from my dark cell.

I hated the idea of crawling back inside it, but feared it would be for the best.

Right then, there was nothing I could do about it either way, so I took his hand, and I found something to like about horses very much.

Kostya pulled me in front of him in the saddle. It was a tight fit, his thighs caging me in against the saddle’s ridge before me, but I didn’t mind. His body was warm against mine. He’d put his feet through some strange contraption, and though mine were loose, the leverage allowed him to move with the horse as he spurred it forward.

It wasn’t like flying, with powerful wings and the smoothness of air around us. Each step was a jolt, but Kostya handled it masterfully. Each subtle shift of his hips sent a strange warmth across my skin. I pressed back against him, eager to feel him everywhere.

And then we got past the edge of the palace grounds and turned toward the ridge of mountains beyond, and the horse picked up pace.

My breath caught against a squeal, but Kostya was there. He felt me tense, and his arms tightened around me, drawing me back into the frame of his body.

“It’s all right,” he whispered in my ear. “We’re safe. We won’t go fast, and I’ve got you.”

His surety washed over me. I let myself sink against him, my head dropping back against his shoulder. My weight couldn’t have done him any favors managing the horse, but when I glanced at his profile from the corner of my eye, his tiny smile said he didn’t mind much.

“Do you know much about Kirian?” He met my eye.

I knew everything about him—how afraid he was, how lonely, how in love—and I could tell him none of it, so I simply cocked my head, and Kostya began to talk.

“He’s my very best friend. People have spread rumors about him, so if you have heard anything, I assure you, it’s false.”

I knew well enough what people said about me. Perhaps I hadn’t heard it from courtiers directly, but I heard it from the servants at the dragon stables often enough. They were all afraid of me. Kostya had never been.

“He’s kind and eager. There’s never been anyone in my life more loyal than Kirian. From the very start, he was at my side, and if—if he ever made a mistake, it was in my defense.” He scowled out ahead of us and went silent for a spell, but I could wait. I didn’t mind.

I liked hearing him talk about me. Though I’d never had reason to doubt Kostya loved me, it was different hearing what he really thought.

I’d never considered myself beautiful. Certainly not sweet.

And still, he spoke of me like the stars only sparkled in the sky because I’d lit them with my fiery breath. He adored me, and if I could only tell him how much I loved him in turn, nothing else would matter.

I gripped his hand against my stomach as he went on about the games we played when he was a child, how I’d cower each time Maraht lit the draperies aflame. I was the oldest of my generation of Vasiliev dragons, but I had been the smallest, the meekest, the most fearful.

My world, before the other princes and princesses had been born and bonded, had consisted entirely of my Kostya.

I could still remember peering into Misha’s crib and fearing that this little pink thing would take my Kostya away from me.

I’d been so scared, until he’d whispered to me that Misha was his little brother, and that we would look after and protect him. Together.

It had always been the two of us.

But as Kostya went on, isolation crept up on me, seeping up around our ankles until all I could sense from him was ice-cold loneliness.

We went higher and higher, until the land began to match Kostya’s darkening mood.

He felt alone, and no matter how tight I gripped his hand, I could not make him see that I was there with him.

In time, he went quiet.

The further we got into the mountain passes, the worse the wind felt against my face. It was bitter and sharp, and my skin began to sting even before it started to snow.

I wanted to go home. This was senseless—Kostya already had me. There was no reason for him to suffer in the cold looking for a lost friend that he’d already found.

He got off the horse while I clung to the leather saddle before me. His boots crunched through the snow, packed down with a layer of ice on top from where the sun had melted the uppermost layer only for it to freeze again every night.

I watched as Kostya marched away, and toward what? There were no clues here—no clues anywhere, because he was looking in all the wrong places.

My Kostya walked away, until he was a thin black sliver against the field of white.

“Kirian,” he screamed. His voice carried on the wind, echoed all around us through the mountain passes.

When he’d dismounted, Kostya had done so gracefully, like a man well used to the saddle. Of course, each time he’d gotten off my back, he’d never kicked or scraped me unpleasantly.

I had no such dexterity, but I managed to bend forward and flip myself over. My feet hit the ground while I was still gripping the saddle behind me. The horse let out a huff and stepped away. With the ground under me, I managed to push myself upright.

“Kirian!” Kostya shouted again.

I stomped through the snow, finding that it was harder to get through the snow and ice on two legs than it’d ever been on four. Still, my Kostya was there, and he needed me.

I reached him as he shouted for me again, and I grabbed his wrist, spinning him around.

I’m here.

My gaze locked on his, I willed him to see the truth. I lifted his hand and pressed it to my chest. My own fell to his, his heartbeat thrumming frantically under my fingers.

His blood rushed with mine. We were bonded.

But his aching sadness did not ease. He stared, dazed, his eyes focused on the center of my face though I got the sense he wasn’t seeing the whole of me.

“Your nose is red,” he mumbled. He sounded broken and lost, and my heart ached with the desperate emptiness he felt.

I shook my head. The cold didn’t matter. With a thump, I pressed the heel of my palm against his chest. See me here with you.

Bitterly, he sighed.

“Let’s go back. He’s gone.”

Chapter 15

Kostya

Five days.

Five days with no sign of Kirian, and no indication of where he might be. Five days of Zoya sleeping and barely waking enough to eat and fall back asleep.

She’d tried speaking a few times, but even though it was my exceptionally strong-willed sister, it was like any person who was too exhausted to carry on a conversation. She didn’t make any sense. She mumbled something to me about making sure Kirian was finding his new skin comfortable, and then her eyes had fluttered shut and refused to open again.

It was sweet that she was thinking of Kirian, even in the midst of her exhaustion, but she needed more rest. Who knew how much more rest, before she was herself again. The magic she’d performed must have been huge, whatever it was.

The tiny, niggling part of my heart that had once belonged to my father, that had been betrayed by his betrayal of his king, wondered if Zoya’s exhaustion was related to Kirian’s disappearance, but . . . no. I had known my father well enough to know that betraying his brother had always been in him, thoughtless and selfish and brash as he was. I knew Zoya well enough to know that she was like me, and while she terrified other people, she was completely loyal to her family. She would do anything for us, and always thought of us first. Before herself, even.

So I’d dealt with five days of uncertainty, fear, and worry, and . . . and then it got so much worse.

When I came out of my bedroom for the morning, I had a stab of hope for something good, because there in the parlor were my brother and his husband. Not that I hadn’t seen them at all, but they hadn’t been taking breakfast in the parlor with Zoya and I for . . . well, for what felt like forever.

Misha didn’t look happy, though. He was scowling, in fact, and while it wasn’t aimed at me, it didn’t bode well.

He was scowling at . . . at Pavel? The head of our personal guards, Pavel was always there to help us, and he’d proven loyal to our branch of the Vasiliev family again and again over the years. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Misha so much as annoyed at him before.

On the other hand, Pavel looked stricken, as though he were coming to tell us our father was dead again.

They all turned to me when I came out, except Pavel, who couldn’t meet my eye and immediately dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Who told him?” Misha demanded of Pavel, eyes narrowed in anger.

Pavel sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know, my prince. I asked my men, but they all say they didn’t whisper a word.” He finally looked up at me for a second, then away again immediately. “The king wants to see you, Prince Konstantin. I’m so sorry.”

Somehow, I was the only person in the room who didn’t rush to sadness or anger. I . . . I burst into laughter. It was nearly hysterical and not at all amused, admittedly, but that didn’t mean much. I’d been close to the edge since Kirian had disappeared, so it wasn’t a surprise I was falling apart. This was the one place where I was allowed to do that, at least a little.

So I gave myself a second to laugh, then drew it back inside. I gave Pavel a wan smile instead and shook my head. “You don’t have to question your men about it. It wasn’t them. It was the stable keepers.”

Because there was only one reason Dima would want to see me. Someone had told him Kirian was missing, and he wanted answers.

Misha stood as though he intended to go with me, and it was . . . the most reassuring thing that had happened in days. Still, from the way Pavel tensed, I had a feeling Dima had specifically demanded me and me alone. Given the way Misha and Dima had only just started to mend what was broken between them, I thought it best to leave him out of it anyway.

I put a hand on my brother’s shoulder, smiled at him, and shook my head. “He just wants to yell at me. He doesn’t trust Kirian, and . . . well, you know.”

“It was an accident,” he hissed in annoyance. “Dasha has long since forgiven it. It’s time for him to let it go. Kirian is as harmless as a snowflake.”

“Snowflakes have a way of being more dangerous than people give them credit for,” I pointed out, distracting him from the subject instead of continuing it. Because it was true—as dragons went, Kirian was harmless. But that harmless, well-meaning dragon had done something that would forever continue to hurt our cousin, because I hadn’t stopped it. Because I wasn’t as under control as everyone gave me credit for.

I wasn’t ignorant of the whispers. The best, most stable, most controlled Vasiliev.

The man who should be king.

Only people who didn’t know me thought that.

Not that I thought Dima or Misha were so much better controlled than I was. No, Misha was a warrior, and not suited to lead a country, but he was well aware of his abilities. Dima . . . well, Dima was a disaster. He could have been a great king, I thought, if only my father hadn’t murdered his. He would have had time to grow into adulthood, learn and become the man he should have been.

Instead, he had snapped in half, and he was still trying to keep from bleeding out in the aftermath. It had made him angry and brittle.

So I girded myself and followed Pavel out.

The king met me in the great hall, but it was thankfully empty, so at least I wouldn’t be exposed to a public tirade, shamed in front of all and sundry.

He was sprawled on his throne, all boneless grace and beauty, his white hair flowing over his shoulders like a frozen waterfall. One hand propped up his chin, and it tipped up when I entered.

“They tell me your beast is missing.”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Kirian disappeared from the stables some five days ago.”

“And why was I not informed?” He was so cold I thought if I touched him, my finger might snap off. It wasn’t reassuring like it might have been, though, more almost terrifying. Like maybe he’d order my death out of sheer icy annoyance.

“I hoped I would have the matter rectified by now, Your Majesty.” I swallowed hard, turning to look at the marble floor instead of into his ice-chip eyes. “I am sorry. It was an oversight on my part, and I didn’t want to disturb you. I am doing all I can to find him.”

“Meanwhile he’s probably out harassing the countryside,” Dima said, voice oddly inflectionless. “There was a village razed some weeks ago. Did he do that?”

“What? No! He was with me when that happened.” Without my permission, my head whipped up to stare at my cousin because he had destroyed Dobryanka. Why would he ask me if Kirian had done it? Was he trying to lay blame at someone else’s feet, or . . . or did he not even realize what he’d done?

Dima’s eyes narrowed at me, like he was looking into my very soul to see if I was lying. But he had to know I wasn’t. Didn’t he?

Finally, he sighed and shook his head. “I expect you to fix this immediately, Konstantin.”

Konstantin, of course. Because he hadn’t called me Kostya since the accident. He had never forgiven me. Never again thought of me as family.

The truth of it was, my father’s betrayal might have shattered Dima, but I’d made the first crack. When Kirian had attacked Adorjan, it’d shattered something in my cousin. Because of me, he’d started down this path in the first place.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” I agreed, bowing.

He gave a snort. “What kind of man loses an entire dragon? His dragon?” He sat forward in a flash, eyes suddenly burning with rage. “Find it, or I will. And Danik will handle the monster rather differently than you’d like.”

Behind him, his bodyguard Arkadii tensed, closing his eyes in apparent pain. He’d spent the last decade watching Dima lose himself, so perhaps it was pain.

Instead of reacting to the threat, I nodded again. “I will handle it, Majesty. I will do what it takes to find him.”

He snarled and waved me away, muttering something about not coming back till I did, so I decided that was a dismissal and left as quickly as possible.

And then . . . blood and ashes. I didn’t know what to do then.

Chapter 16

Kirian

Something was very wrong.

From early that morning, trapped once again in my uncomfortable bedroom with its ugly sounds and smells, I’d felt a spiraling sense of panic, of desperation, of hopelessness. It wasn’t my own, but it was even worse for it.

That meant it was Kostya who felt so lost. My Kostya.

Nothing I had done had helped him at all.

But it had been years, so many years, since either one of us had felt so impotent. Normally, my Kostya held it all together—anything he could get his hands on. He kept his family together, his country, his sanity. He held on with both hands.

And then we’d go flying, and he’s spill his secret doubts to me, and he’d tell me his fears.

That seemed to make him feel better. That outlet allowed him to keep a sturdy mask on in the palace, to be the man that everyone wanted him to be.

Now, he thought I had abandoned him, and pressure built up inside him with no release.

I tried to help him.

If I couldn’t make him see me, truly believe that I was with him, I still set myself beside him whenever I could. He could talk to me as he always had.

At first, that had helped him some, I thought. The tight coil in my chest would ease, and Kostya would offer me a weak, sad smile on occasion.

But I couldn’t be with him always, and as the days dragged on, the round man from the hallway—a man who still hadn’t bothered to give me his name, but who many of the other servants called “sir”—had hunted me down and given me chores to do.

They were . . . unpleasant.

I noticed that not all humans participated in all activities.

The ones in coarser, rougher fabric did menial tasks. In fact, the round man had cursed and snapped at me when I’d worn the nice clothes that Kostya had given me to tide me over. He accused me of stealing them, but seemed satisfied when I came back in the stiff rags that’d been left behind in the room I’d been given.

The humans in bright colors, furs, and silks seemed to . . . drink. Often.

Well, the servants drank as well—flasks hidden away in the folds of their clothes or in jacket pockets. But they didn’t laugh so much as the people in finer fabrics.

Vodka was sharp and burned brighter than fire. One night, I’d had too much and it’d come back up with all the borscht I’d eaten for dinner.

Other than that, I couldn’t tell the difference between sets of people, other than perhaps the people in larger, cleaner rooms had bonded partners that were more impressive.

The people wearing real fur would often be followed by a hawk or a wolf or a large cat. Most servants were lucky if they were accompanied by a titmouse kept warm in their pockets.

Perhaps that was the measure of men.

I felt a rush of pride at the idea that my Kostya was best amongst them, tied as he was to a dragon. I was proud to be a part of his success.

And then, I remembered that he was now bound to a man too like himself. Only, he knew how to wield a sword and how to think things through and how to plot.

I couldn’t even speak. Since I’d lost my scales, I was no credit to him.

But that night, after cleaning chamber pots in rooms not nearly as nice as the ones I’d grown up in with Kostya, even the exhaustion of a hard day of work couldn’t drag me to sleep.

All I could feel was cold dread and a simmering panic that would take me over.

Kostya was unwell, and I had to find him.

The bond was a strange thing, both constant and malleable. I couldn’t pick him out precisely, and should he prick his finger, I could only feel the flash of pain that sang through his mind and down the core of him when it faded.

When he bled, I did not bleed.

But when I had blinded Adorjan, I had blinded her rider with her.

And when Kostya died, I would die beside him.

So while I could not find him, there was more to the shape of him in my thoughts than his grief.

He was cold. High up. His head swam with the altitude and an unusual dizziness.

When we flew, Kostya was prepared. He was exuberant.

This was different. He was confused and upset and—and resigned.

As his agony twisted through me, it grew, echoing between us as I hurtled up winding, shadowy stairwells.

I wasn’t with him. He couldn’t fly if I wasn’t with him.

But he was high, and the palace was the highest building around.

I threw myself to the ramparts. Already, it was dark out. The thick clouds closed in overhead, blotting out the stars. Snow fell slowly, tiny flecks circling in the air.

Everything was still. Silent to my human ears.

But there was a shadow, a sliver, leaning against the stones.

My Kostya leaned there, his hair swirling in the frozen wind.

When I came out, he didn’t look at me. Didn’t lift his head.

He was gazing out at the land beyond—Voronezh, which would do its best to kick us out and see us all dead, were it not for Kostya and his family holding it together.

He leaned forward, between ridges of stone on either side of him.

I panicked, my mouth open around a strangled cry.

A sound, trapped in a throat closed off by the back of my tongue. It felt like I was going to swallow it, like my mouth was the wrong shape and my teeth were too large.

“K–K–”

My cheeks ached, trying to find the right shape for the sound that had beat in my heart since I was a hatchling small enough to fit beside him in a bassinet.

“Kosta,” I tried, but that wasn’t right.

It wasn’t what people called him. There was another part, a complicated move of the lips and tongue that reminded me of that tight feeling right before I took off, the spring that followed.

“Kostya!”

Chapter 17

Kostya

The Vasiliev family is, perhaps, a bit inclined to dramatics. Our personal issues with intrigue and murder, yes, but even in small things, we were prone to blow them all out of proportion. When we were small, Zoya once cried because the cherry jam was empty at breakfast. Misha flew into a rage because a boy had smudged dirt into a page of one of his schoolbooks. He hadn’t beaten the boy, who had been his own age, but I thought sometimes that he still didn’t like him after all these years.

Because of course, Vasiliev rage was also a cold thing most of the time, even in hot-tempered Misha. Just like Voronezh, we were miles of frozen tundra, unforgiving and harsh.

Dima threatening to kill Kirian was not a surprise.

I wasn’t certain he could follow through on that threat, since as much as he was a sweet little pussycat in reality, Kirian was still one of the biggest, strongest dragons in Voronezh. Perhaps the strongest, in fact. The king’s black dragon, Danik, was very big and impressive, but I thought Kirian could probably handle him in a fight.

The problem wasn’t my fear for Kirian, in this. It was the fact that if Kirian killed Danik, Dima would also die. As much as my cousin was a possibly mad, insufferable ass, I had always held out hope that eventually, he would heal. He would be himself again. Whether he liked me or not, Dima would be better at most of the duties of kingship than I could ever be. He was better with people—liked them more, enjoyed court and large gatherings of people and the only-sometimes-friendly banter of courtiers.

There wasn’t another Vasiliev who liked any of that, except Dasha, who couldn’t possibly bond the land.

Because of me. The attack on Adorjan had swept across their bond, turning it brittle. After an injury like that, it was too great a risk to put further strain on it. Even if Dasha had wanted the throne, I didn’t think Zoya would risk the spellwork.

So again, everything boiled down to its essence, Voronezh was in danger because of me. Because I had failed to control my dragon.

I wanted nothing more than to protect my land and people, but I wasn’t sure I was capable of that. I could do many of the important things the king needed to do. I was excellent with the coffers of the kingdom, with logistical planning and making sure things got where they needed to be. But charming people? Keeping them happy?

The kingdom needed Dima. The problem was that the kingdom needed sweet, teenaged Dima, not this wild version of him that changed from second to second and threatened Kirian for the crime of possibly being kidnapped.

So even assuming Kirian would come away from that fight the winner, Voronezh would still lose. Again. Because of me, again.

“Kostya!”

The solid baritone voice wasn’t one I knew, but something about it had me turning to face the direction it’d come from. The deep, smooth fluidity of the voice? Maybe. Or maybe, it was the choked fear and worry in the single word.

I turned from the crenellations, half expecting to find an assassin waiting for me—though why he would have warned me of his arrival, I didn’t know—only to find the bright green I’d been longing to see. In the stranger’s eyes, not Kirian’s glorious scales, but still, I’d been trained from birth to find the very shade relaxing, and felt so much of the tension go out of my body that I slumped against the stone behind me.

The stranger, on the other hand, didn’t seem entirely satisfied. He rushed into my space, lifting his hands to cup my cheeks, shining green eyes filled with worry, brows scrunched together as he studied my face.

“Did, ah, did you say that?”

He seemed confused for a moment, then comprehension dawned, and he nodded, biting his lip and glancing away, bashful for some reason. I didn’t know why, but every instinct in me screamed to soothe him. I put my hands on his waist, leaning in and pressing my forehead to his. “I’m glad you’ve found your voice. It’s lovely.”

He flushed a becoming pink, but his gaze settled back on my own, filled with worry and kindness.

Something else, too. Something consuming and scared, like he was . . . like he was worried about me, and that mattered to him.

Instead of searching for more words, he stared at me for a moment, wide eyes searching my face for something. Then he shook himself, pursed his lips in determination, and pushed forward.

He used his whole body to press me into the stone wall behind me, and when space ran out between us, his lips against my own as well. They were soft and dry and just the tiniest bit chapped.

It was hurried and awkward; he didn’t know what to do with his nose, as though he’d never kissed anyone before. But he figured it out quickly enough, wrapping his arms around me and leaning in, his scent washing over me, wool and woodsmoke and fresh clean skin, masculine and yet somehow soft.

Sweet.

Just like him.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t argue. Didn’t pull away. Didn’t let myself focus on what was wrong and what I needed to do instead. I simply let myself lean back against the wall and be kissed by a beautiful man.

Chapter 18

Kirian

My Kostya had gone soft in my arms.

I’d kissed him.

I’d kissed him, because that was what humans did when they were overcome, when they did not have words to convey the depths of their feelings and fears.

Dragons didn’t kiss. Sometimes, we would rub our faces or necks against each other’s. Not me—not usually. Sometimes Maraht would want to be close to me, and that was nice, but for the most part, I’d been too scared when I was small and too isolated when I was older.

But this was different. I was not prepared for the way heat swept through my cheeks, the way pleasure spread with every movement we made, until my cheeks were aching with a smile and my hands trembling with the need for more of him.

I held him close, running my soft human hands through his silky white hair. It was perfect. He was perfect.

He’d never felt it—I knew that—but I’d seen it every day, and I understood it now, kissing. It was the only way to worship such perfection, to reveal all the sweetness he deserved.

I kissed him and kissed him and kept kissing him, only pulling back to catch a breath.

His hands began to roam across my clothes. They weren’t the finer ones he’d given to me, but he didn’t seem to mind. He wasn’t appreciating the fabric, but my body beneath it.

His fingers clenched my hips, slipped beneath my tunic.

Shakily, I gasped and pulled back.

It was too much, for him to touch my skin while we were kissing. Need rose up around me like a sudden snowstorm in flight, making it hard to breathe.

What it was I needed, I wasn’t quite sure. My cock ached, a rush through my groin had me pushing against him. More friction, more movement, more contact.

More Kostya.

But I was lost and unsure, and I needed—

I needed a moment to compose myself. I was no dragon, to open my wide maw and swallow him whole, but icy, frozen blood, there was something about this feeling that spoke to that.

I wanted all of Kostya. I had to consume him entirely.

I needed him always.

With my hand cupped around his, I lifted his hand and thumped it against my chest. “Stay, Kostya.”

He stared up at me, dazed and flushed. The feeling that sang through our bond was heady, tingling with pleasure. All his need tangled with my own.

Kostya’s throat bobbed. He nodded. “I will,” he promised.

Relief washed through me. There was nothing in the world we couldn’t solve together. As long as he stayed with me, all would be well.

A chill wind blew, and Kostya’s brow furrowed.

After a silent moment, he tilted his head. “Do you . . . want to come inside?”

I nodded. It wasn’t a question that needed even a moment’s consideration. Wherever Kostya was, that was where I wanted to be. It’d always been like that.

He held my hand as he led the way back inside the palace. Somehow, even that one innocent touch kept a funny feeling tingling through my arm. My heart beat faster.

We wound up in his room again, the large balcony closed off against the bitter winds. But the glass doors looked out over the dragon stables. Kostya had always been watching over me.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

An edge of anxiety had crept into his voice, and I couldn’t have that.

I shook my head and tugged on his arm, dragging him toward me again. His first step was shuffling and awkward, but then his body was pressed against mine once more.

Giving him enough time to pull away, I leaned in for another kiss.

He surged forward.

This time, the world made a little more sense. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the cold and the wind and the fear. It was just Kostya.

His body was long and lithe against mine, all muscle toned by his many worries and the lengths he’d gone to, to work them out. And there, against my hip, the press of his cock, rigid and firm.

He liked this. It pleased him, awoke something in him that I hadn’t felt so keenly before.

I just hadn’t realized it awoke the same feeling in me, until his hand slipped between us, and I realized that pulsing want belonged to us both.

His hand ran over my cock, the heel of his palm stroking, smooth and confident, from the tip down and back up again.

“All right?” he asked.

I nodded, reaching for him as well.

But it wasn’t enough. Fondling him through his trousers, however silken they were, was not enough.

I tugged at his clothes. The intricacies of human garments were beyond me, especially when they were as complicated as Kostya’s, but with his help, I managed to get my hand inside the front, and the scent of him overwhelmed me. Warm and masculine and trapped under all those clothes.

At once, the only thing that mattered was getting to the rest of him, tasting his skin, touching every part of him that he’d kept from me all these years.

We shed our clothes, shuffling toward his bed all the while. When I gripped his cock, stroked it, he gasped. But the moan that followed? That sound would live in my heart forever.

I pushed him back on the bed. Though I had only the faintest idea what I was doing, my body seemed to do well enough on its own. Each movement, each roll of my hips against his, sought more pleasure for us both, until he was scrambling for the bedside table.

He came back with a bottle.

When I frowned, he said, “I want you—can I have you inside me?”

I grinned. Silly man didn’t know that he could have anything he wanted. He didn’t ever need to ask.

In answer, I swooped down and kissed him. Some of the tension went out of him then, and when I sat back on my heels, he seemed less nervous.

He poured oil over his fingers. I knew, well—I knew some things. But this? It was new to me.

So I watched him slick his fingers, oil pooled in the curve of his palm. He shifted his legs far apart and his hand moved between his thighs. He spread the oil, until his skin glistened in the firelight. His longest finger circled around his puckered entrance.

And then it sank inside.

I watched, rapt, as his finger disappeared into himself.

“Stop staring,” Kostya whispered, an awkward laugh hitching his breathing.

Anything he wanted, I’d sworn. So I closed my hand on top of his. I could feel the tendons in his hand moving beneath my palm as he fucked himself. I reached beyond, to where his skin stretched around his finger.

From the first thrust, he’d pushed his finger as deep as it would go. Impatient. Needy.

When I ran my fingertip round his rim, he whimpered.

“Put it in,” he begged, his heels pressing into the bed, lifting his hips to me.

I bit my lip against a desperate sob, and the next time he withdrew his finger, I pushed my own in beside his on the thrust that followed.

He cried out. I groaned with him.

He was tight, hot, slick everywhere. I turned my hand, twisting my finger inside of him. I could only feel with the pad of it, and I wanted to touch every inch of him. I wanted to feel that silken channel for myself.

My hand pressed atop his kept us both trapped there, but I didn’t care so long as I could explore him. No need to rush.

Well, not until he began to move his hips and beg.

“More,” he rasped.

And he’d shown me how to do it, hadn’t he?

I tapped his wrist, and he withdrew his hand. Then, it was for me to take care of him.

I fucked him with my fingers—first two, then I added a third. His thighs trembled, his knees twitching closer together before spreading wide, arching up, demanding more from me.

Anything he wanted. Everything I had, he could have.

With his hands gripping my shoulders, he sat up and pushed my arm out of the way. In his fist, he squeezed my cock.

“This,” he demanded. “Fuck me.”

Joy rushed through my veins. I’d have him. My Kostya. Mine.

Sitting back on my heels, I ran my oil-slick hand along my cock from root to tip, squeezing at the end until the world went white. When I tipped forward again, I braced a hand on the bed and lined myself up with him.

I began to push. The pressure around the head of my cock was pure bliss, rushing through me in a melting wave.

I held myself there, a mere inch inside his warm body, my arms trembling from the sensation of him around me. His muscles twitched, pressing down, easing the way.

I wanted to thrust into him, sink into him and never come out. And I wanted to hold myself there, right on the edge, trapped in this moment just before I lost myself. I wanted to etch his face into my memory—this expression, contorted in burning pleasure and sweetest pain. I wanted the line between his brows, his softly parted lips, the flare of white lashes across his pink cheeks.

I wanted all of him.

More importantly, I needed him to know that I was his, all his.

Just a fraction, I drew back. “Yours,” I whispered as I thrust into him again, this time, a little deeper. “Yours, Kostya.”

Gasping, he nodded. His heel pressed into the small of my back, urging me forward, but I was not going to shove myself into him and take him senselessly. I wanted to chase the feelings that made him squirm, that blew every doubt and worry from his mind.

If I could, I’d hold us there forever.

I rocked my hips in a slow circle—up and back, down and forward—sinking deeper every time. His wondrous body opened for me, allowing me inside.

Even when we flew, I’d never felt this close to him. I’d never felt like I could change his very essence, or he could change mine.

This was something new—something wonderful.

His body was open to me, his legs parted, his gasps in time with my own. I moved faster, a slick squelch between us as his skin stretched around my cock, the oil he’d put inside himself pushed deep and smearing messily over his skin and mine.

My lower belly dragged against his cock, pressed his balls up against his body. He cried out, and I grinned.

This was the best—the best thing I’d ever done. My skin on his, his body wrapped around me, clenching when I thrust just right. His sweet hole a perfect vise to surrender to. There was nothing but the pleasure we chased together.

Holding myself over him, I could watch as rapture crashed over him, drawing gasps from deep in his chest. The corners of his lips turned up, mouth open around the sound. When I leaned in, nudged his nose with my own, I could feel his warm, humid breath against my lips.

“Don’t stop,” he begged, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Please, fuck, don’t stop.”

Never, I wanted to tell him. But my words were gone except the one.

“Kostya,” I groaned against his cheek. I kissed it, dragging my lips across his skin while he arched beneath me, a wild thing, meeting my every movement with his own.

I could feel him, his skin tingling, his need driving him wild. Could he feel the same from me? Surely yes. I could not seem to tell him that I was his Kirian, though I had said his name and would be damned if I didn’t find a way to tell him my own, but . . . but this was more.

This was the whole world singing. He had to feel it too.

His hand sneaked between us, and I swear, the second he curled his fingers around his slick, flushed tip, something sparked in my mind. It rushed down my spine and drew my sack up like I was becoming something else—one concentrated pinprick in the world, all belonging to Kostya.

This was it, the whole world trapped between us.

And it exploded.

Chapter 19

Kostya

Idreamed of Kirian.

Miles of shining green-gold scales, his toothy grin, and . . . well, there were things a man shouldn’t think about his dragon. Or any dragon. Impossible, disturbing, inappropriate things.

But Kirian was . . . everything. My best friend, my heart, my soul, my confidante—

Kirian was my life.

And instead of going out looking for him like I needed to, I’d been lounging in my cushy safe bed, being fucked by a stranger whose name I didn’t even know.

My father would have been ashamed.

Lost dragon, emotional distress, and worst, to his mind, getting fucked in the literal, physical way. He’d joked about it when Georgiy had been forced to marry Daniil—whether his brother would be “unmanned” by the slight, sweet, younger man. I hadn’t understood until years later that for him, and many other men in Voronezh, who you took to bed was irrelevant, but who was on top mattered.

I’d been in the middle of my experimenting teen years, taking people to bed, trying things out. When a rumor had reached my father that I’d allowed another man inside me, he’d demanded I call it a lie. When I’d told him it was true, he’d beaten me within an inch of my life.

I’d never done it again while he was alive, which I supposed had suited him just fine.

Me, I still didn’t see where it mattered. Unless women were somehow lesser for being the penetrated party, I couldn’t understand why a man being penetrated was bad. Father had always seemed to respect mother. Mostly.

Besides, it felt incredible. Why limit oneself?

There was simply some disconnect I had never understood, and I doubted I ever would have, even if he’d lived. It wasn’t as though he’d been the best communicator, my father. If he had been, he’d have talked to his brother instead of murdering him, and they both might still be alive.

My family might not be broken, most of us hanging onto life and duty and sanity by threads.

I opened my eyes to the shining green of the stranger’s own, and in the cold light of morning, they only made me think of Kirian’s scales. Of how I was failing Kirian completely, in every way.

I pushed myself up, head hung low, and the stranger’s hand reached out to touch mine, but I pulled away. I offered the best smile I could muster, but had little doubt it wasn’t reassuring at all. Not with the way I refused to meet his eye, staring instead at the bed.

I needed to find a reason to send him away.

Everything in me screamed not to do that. Don’t send him away.

You need him.

Shame and guilt coiled in my belly, and I swallowed hard, sliding from the side of the bed. “I’m going to have them draw you a bath.”

Before he could even try to speak, I grabbed my robe and rushed out the door, still pulling the robe on as I went. It wasn’t as though Misha had never seen my naked ass before.

In the parlor, though, Misha had his back to me, and it was his husband who got an eyeful of cock not covered quite fast enough. He lifted one sculpted eyebrow at me, but didn’t say a word about it. Instead, he held up a tart. “Breakfast? Misha says fig is your favorite.”

And that . . . well, that was settling. I was a part of their life, and Evgeny saw me as family. He hadn’t ogled or commented, just moved on. And Misha had spoken of me, of something trivial that mattered to me.

Perhaps he was on his way to forgiving me.

I smiled and inclined my head. “I need to ask for a bath, but that sounds perfect, thank you.”

Misha turned, lifting a brow of his own. “A bath? Before breakfast?”

It was odd, perhaps, but . . . “Yes. For a . . . for someone else.”

That summoned Misha’s trademark grin, the one that showed all his teeth, and depending on whether you were someone he wanted to bed or kill, had a reputation for being either sexy or terrifying.

For me, it made me smile back. Maybe I hadn’t lost Misha at all.

He waved me off, turning back to his own food. “Say no more. We’ll save one for you. Or rather, two.”

I went out and asked for the bath, feeling at least slightly better, and got back to my room in time to watch Kasia usher the stranger into the bathing room. He looked slightly concerned, glancing back in my direction, but I still couldn’t meet his eye.

What the hell was wrong with me? I’d slept with a man whose name I didn’t even know, who might be sick or have a head injury, and why? Because I was alone and lonely and desperate for a connection. For Kirian.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, my whole weight falling on it with a loud thump, and rubbed my hands down my face, trying not to groan aloud. I couldn’t seem to do anything right anymore.

Had I ever been able to?

I tried to draw myself up, find the inner strength that got me through my days, when a glimmer of something caught my eye. Turning, I looked to see what it was.

A scale.

A sparkling green scale, half tucked between the sheet and blanket, catching the sun and throwing light around the room.

One of Kirian’s scales.

Chapter 20

Kirian

Something was wrong. Kostya would not look at me, and the feeling that sang across our bond was tortured.

And it was familiar. Kostya often tortured himself, letting guilt consume him even for things that were not his fault.

After the night before, I couldn’t fathom why he would pull away from me.

He’d seemed so happy, surrendering to closeness. I hadn’t imagined that. We’d forged something new between us, something splendid.

And still, when he woke, he couldn’t escape me fast enough, and I worried I had done wrong.

When he went to fetch a bath, I couldn’t help wondering if it was simply that I smelled. I didn’t think so, certainly not worse than the dragon stables smelled on the hottest days in that dark, trapped room.

But if he wished me clean, I didn’t mind. Human baths were lovely compared to the rough brushes the servants at the stables had used to clean us.

Still, I had not imagined the luxury I walked into when Kasia came to guide me away.

This wasn’t the rough wooden tub the servants used. It was large and sculpted, like it sat in the same place on the floor and hadn’t been moved since it’d been put there.

The maid showed me the towels and suggested different soaps. She kept stealing discreet looks at my form, but, well, I hardly minded that.

I was not so beautiful as my Kostya, but my body had pleased him, so it must be a good one.

I was prouder of it than I’d been since finding myself on two legs now that I knew what it could do—the pleasure I could give Kostya with it.

When she left, I lowered myself into the tub, and any soreness in my limbs from the days of chores or the exertions of the night before began to fade.

Even the water here was sweet—not just warm and clear, but scented with something like lemongrass. It reminded me of the gardens where Kostya and I spent afternoons, where he had found me only a few days ago.

The only thing that would make this soak more pleasant was having Kostya there with me. Though there was another tub in the room, this one was more than large enough for us both. I’d be happy to sit with him in any arrangement, so long as we were near again. The feel of his skin against mine, slippery under water, would be wonderful.

Only . . . he wouldn’t look at me directly.

Had I not done what he asked? Perhaps I’d been clumsy. Hurt him. He’d felt happy the night before, but humans were strange in their feelings. A thing might make him happy in one moment, but that joy shriveled and died on reflection.

I did not want to make him strange and sad, or confused.

As I sat there, my hands floating across the top of the bath water, I couldn’t make sense of it. Kostya was still befuddled, but I could understand that. I was too. I had two legs, not four. I was small. I was human.

He couldn’t believe the change.

All of that made sense.

But the night before, he’d kissed me back. His hands had traced my body until everything was lightness and pleasure.

It was only this morning, on waking, that everything was so unsettled. A bath would fix it, a moment to compose ourselves. He’d remember my arms around him and decide that it was good; he just needed a moment to calm down.

When someone swept into the room with a bang, I straightened in the tub, twisting to look at my Kostya.

At first, I thought he’d come to join me, but I didn’t account for the harshness of his steps, the quick, efficient way he marched right up to the edge of the tub.

I’d envisioned him leaning over for a kiss, all awkwardness set aside.

Instead, his hand closed on my shoulder, his thumb digging into the meat of it. It hurt. I grunted, scrambling as he tugged me to my feet in the tub, my feet slipping beneath me.

“What is this?” he demanded, shoving something in my face that made no sense at all.

It was a scale, gleaming and green—the sort that’d covered my arms and tail and presumably the whole rest of me, even the parts I couldn’t see. Or they had before Zoya changed me.

I stared at it, mouth agape, stammering nonsense.

It was mine. I was Kirian.

“You appeared out of nowhere, on the very day that Kirian disappeared.” I’d never heard Kostya’s voice like this, cold and detached and furious. At least, not directed at me. He loved me. He did. This was all—

It was all nothing.

“Ever since, you have stalked my every move. You’ve been my shadow. And why? Who are you working for? Are you a spy? Is this some game? Because I swear by the blood, you will not win it.”

I shook my head fast. It was none of that. I was his.

“If you have played me a fool, if you could speak this whole time—if this is a cover—”

Anger made his chest rise and fall quickly. Kostya’s rage and fear washed over me and mixed with my own. What was happening? What had I done? Why couldn’t I explain any of this to him? I opened my mouth to tell him, but the words stuck inside. I didn’t know which ones to use, or what order to put them in, and it all just backed up into me, unable to come out.

All that mattered to me, the whole world over, was right there in that bathing room, and I’d have done anything to help him see it.

“Kostya—”

I reached for his hand, gripped around the scale. I wanted to cover it. It was mine, and if it upset him so, we’d put it away until all made sense to us both.

But when I touched him, he ripped his hand away from me. His fingers flexed into the bruises on my shoulder to keep himself upright, and I yelped, jerking back too.

Half the water in the tub followed me as I lost my footing and fell over the side. My hip hit the marble floor with a crack. I took a towel rack down with it, wood striking the floor louder than my body had. Water was everywhere, all around me outside of the tub, but Kostya didn’t slip as he stalked across the floor.

On his way, he snatched a gleaming silver candlestick off a nearby ledge. The candle fell to the floor, the flame sputtering out in all that water. But the metal, he brandished like a club.

He fell on me, his knees on either side of my body in a twisted parody of the night before. His robe slipped open in the middle, his collarbones sharp and catching the light from the candles that remained. He was beautiful, my Kostya. Even in all his fury, he was beautiful.

“I will have an answer from you,” he snarled, raising the candlestick high. “Where the fuck is my dragon?”

Chapter 21

Kostya

He wasn’t answering me.

In fact, he had the fucking nerve to look terrified and sorrowful, like I was the one who had stolen his entire life out from under him.

I shook him like a cat with its chosen prey in its mouth, my voice verging on hysterical as I demanded to know. “Where? Where is he? What have you done with him?”

He shook his head, like that was an answer, wrapping his fingers around the scale, but not trying to take it out of my hand. He stared at me, eyes wide and beseeching, but he didn’t try to speak again. Like I was supposed to simply know what he wanted to say.

I bared my teeth at him, a poor parody of my dear Kirian’s terrifying snarl, but he reared back, turning his head away and flinching as though he understood the threat.

There was a loud thump and the door to the parlor swung open.

“What the hell is with all the noise?” Misha grumbled, leaning into the doorway, scowling. “What the fuck are you about, Kostya?”

I let go of the stranger and held up Kirian’s glittering scale like it was a murder weapon.

Misha continued staring at me like I wasn’t making any sense, so I scowled at him. “It was . . . where he left it.” I pointed accusingly at the stranger, not quite willing to admit that the where had been my bed.

That I’d spent last night bedding a man who might have had something to do with Kirian’s disappearance. I’d let him inside me, a man who might have hurt Kirian. Who might have kidnapped him, been planning to do blood only knew what with him.

My Kirian was in danger, possibly because of this man.

But mostly because I hadn’t been there. Hadn’t done enough. Hadn’t protected him.

Misha’s eyes went softer, and he approached me, reaching out to pluck the scale from my fingers. I . . . I couldn’t let it go, so he had to work to get it away from me. He tucked it into his sash, but I couldn’t stop staring at the spot where it had disappeared.

It was the only piece of Kirian that I had.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I had other scales I’d collected over the years. Dragon scales were worth something, so they were always meticulously collected and put away when they sloughed off.

It was a reason to kidnap a dragon, wasn’t it? Stealing his scales. No doubt the rest of him was worth as much, cut into pieces and sold off to people who thought dragon liver cured illnesses of the blood and powdered dragon bone would give them a better, longer lasting erection. Just the thought made my mouth dry.

“Kostya,” Misha said, his tone smooth and even as he guided me off the stranger and onto my feet, “explain to me what the issue is.”

It was disturbing. I was supposed to be the calm, even one who kept him on the straight and narrow when he lost his temper. Even that realization, though, didn’t make my heart stop pounding or the blood stop rushing in my head.

“Kirian is . . . he’s—”

“I know,” he soothed, rubbing his hands up and down my arms quickly, like I was cold and he was trying to warm me.

I was cold, I realized with a start. I was shivering.

“And I found that”—my eyes drifted back to the spot where Misha had tucked the scale into his sash—“where he was last night. And the first time I saw him was outside the dragon stable the morning Kirian disappeared, and—”

Misha leaned in and kissed my forehead. “I understand, Kostya. But this isn’t getting you what you want, is it?”

This?

What was this? What the hell was he talking about?

He gestured around to the bathing room, floor covered with water and soap and sopping towels flung around.

The stranger sat in a pool on the floor beside the tub, twisting his fingers together and looking like he actually wanted to say something. It wouldn’t be the truth, though. Wouldn’t be where Kirian was.

Had his compatriots come to kidnap Kirian and left him to be discovered deliberately? Had they left him when something unexpected had happened, like an accident that left him wandering and confused and naked?

How did a thing like that even happen?

What the fuck had they done?

The sound that came from me then was little better than a strangled sob, and my father would have been ashamed. Misha, on the other hand, didn’t even seem bothered. With his grip on my arms firm, he turned and shoved me toward the corner of the room, into a small chair, patting me on the head like a child having a tantrum.

When he looked up, it was to Pavel, who was nervously hovering in the doorway, fingers twined together as though he needed to do something to keep himself from reaching out.

Misha motioned to the stranger. “It seems that perhaps Kostya’s guest knows something about Kirian’s disappearance.” Their eyes met and locked for a long moment, as though they were communicating with their minds.

Pavel’s gaze hardened as the moment passed, and he nodded, turning to glare at the stranger. “Well then,” he said. “We’ll have to find out just what he knows, won’t we?”

Chapter 22

Kirian

Had I paid attention to the look that passed between Misha and Pavel, I might have realized how much trouble I was in.

Instead, my gaze stayed fixed on my Kostya, sitting at his brother’s side, shivering. He leaned his shoulder into Misha’s hip for comfort.

Right then, I hated how Kostya turned to him, how he trusted him. That should have been me at his side. I wanted to be the one Kostya trusted most in the whole world.

But he didn’t trust me. Even on four legs, I had caused him so much strife.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t hate Misha himself. In my heart, he was my own brother, and from the day Misha had been born, Kostya had never been alone. Even after I was shut away, Misha was there for him.

If only I could be there also.

But Pavel stepped forward, shoved a damp towel at me, and commanded I rise.

The march through the palace then was cold and harsh. I held the cloth to myself, but my bare feet dripped over stone.

We walked out of the warm central heart of the palace toward its outer edges, then down. Down until there were no windows and the cold sneaked in worse than it had in the servants’ quarters. Here, it was musty, wet, frigid.

There were torches on the walls, and soon, we walked past doors that looked too dense, too heavy. They had small windows, but they were blocked, and foul odors filtered out from them.

In this place, Pavel stopped. He opened a door at the end of the corridor and ushered me into a small room before closing the door shut tight behind me.

I thought I was lost, standing there in the middle of the room, unsure what to do next. He returned in only a few minutes, a bundle in his arms that he shoved into mine.

“Get dressed,” he commanded.

These clothes were worse than the ones servants wore. They were rough everywhere, and there were no trousers. Only small clothes and a very long tunic. The cloth was dirty and stank of piss and something fouler. I didn’t want to wear it, only—

Well, it wasn’t any worse than the rest of this place.

“Men will come and take you.” Pavel stood impassively, his arms crossed, his gaze hard when I met his eye.

There was only one man I cared to see in this whole palace.

“They will hurt you.”

At that, I swallowed.

There wasn’t much that could hurt a dragon, with our scales and dense, muscled bodies. There wasn’t much that would try.

But here? Yes, I thought they could hurt me very easily.

“You do not look like a man who has suffered much in his life,” Pavel said. He looked me over, but I no longer enjoyed being seen in this unblemished skin. I had no reason to feel pride or satisfaction, knowing that Kostya was up in his rooms without me, heartbroken.

I hastened to drag the rough-spun garments over my head as he went on.

“No scars. Bum smooth as a babe’s. Were I you, I’d prepare my answers now, make them short and clear and to the point. The prince wants his dragon. You give him the information he needs, they’ll make it quick for you. No reason to draw out your suffering. Gavriil always gets what he wants.”

“Kostya,” I whispered.

Because he was what I wanted. All I wanted.

Pavel scoffed. “Put your hands out.”

I did, and he put metal cuffs on both my wrists, joined in the middle by a heavy chain.

Then he left, and the door closed behind him.

This room wasn’t like the one in the dragon stables. Dexterous human fingers didn’t help me in the slightest, because there were no large doors, no cogs, nothing to pick at to aid my escape.

I checked thoroughly, and when I realized I was stuck, I roared.

In this form, the sound was pathetic, but there was a metallic clang from down the hall.

“Shut your fucking yap,” someone said gruffly.

Somehow, I knew calling for Kostya wouldn’t bring me to him. I’d not gotten him to understand so far. Why would now be any different?

I was stuck. My Kostya was dangling over a ravine, clinging to a thread, no wings to lift him if it snapped.

He needed me, and here I was once again, locked in the dark.

I stepped to the far wall, away from the wooden door with its tiny barred window, leaned back against it, and sank down. The stones were hard. The rats here skittered across the floor, but I couldn’t even see their shadows with my human eyes.

Was it worse here than it’d been in the dragon stable, or was I just more susceptible to suffering? I was smaller and weaker, but it wasn’t only that.

In the stable, even if I spent all day alone in the dark, I knew that if I waited, Kostya would come and we would fly.

All I could see now was the anger and betrayal in his glare, the gleam of the candlestick lifted high.

He hated me, and down here, I’d never reach him.

Even if I managed to find him again, I couldn’t give him the words he wanted to hear. He couldn’t see me, even when I was right in front of him.

Senselessly, I scratched at the nape of my neck. I’d felt an itch that I hadn’t properly noticed until something flaked into my palm. In the dim light, I saw the gleam of a broken scale in my hand.

My scale.

Sitting on the cold, wet floor, I hugged my legs to my chest, buried my face against my knees, and sobbed.

Chapter 23

Kostya

Any other day, it would have mattered more, Misha’s presence once again at my side.

I had missed my brother, worried that his hot temper and ability to hold a grudge would apply to me as much as it had to our cousin, and that he’d refuse to speak to me for a decade. I should have known better. First of all, he didn’t think I’d killed our father. Secondly, he was my brother. First, last and always, Misha was my brother.

Perhaps being Genya’s husband had become a very important part of his life, but it didn’t change anything between us. I was happy for him—their marriage had not been arranged with the intention of making my brother happy, but somehow, it had managed just that.

Meanwhile, there I was, my brother back at my side, and still completely alone.

Without Kirian, there was nothing. Even on the off chance I could survive his death—it was unlikely, but it had been known to happen on occasion—I would never be alive without him at my side. Under me. Between my thighs as we soared into the clouds.

Usually, Misha only took charge in a fight. He knew his strengths, and military precision was the biggest. This time, it was good that he was willing to step up regardless of his experience with the issue.

It wasn’t like a missing dragon was an issue we ever had to put up with in Voronezh.

As Dima had demanded of me, what kind of fucking useless dragon rider lost his dragon? How did a person even lose a whole fucking dragon? My instinct wanted to blame the stables, since he’d been there, and it was their job to watch the dragons, but . . . he was literally attached to me. I could feel him.

At that moment, he felt like an echo of my own misery, and I couldn’t tell whether the initial feeling had come from me or him. The deep well of sadness that had spread through me during his absence had clouded everything in my mind.

I needed my Kirian. I wanted to find the box of his scales I had and immerse myself in them, but I also knew it would do nothing to help. It would look like Kirian, yes, the deep green of him everywhere, but it meant nothing without his soft, soothing presence behind it. As long as he was away from me, especially now, when he was unhappy . . .

Misha arranged for one person after another to visit us in our rooms, and had the same questions for all of them. Where were they the day Kirian disappeared? Were they anywhere within spitting distance of the stables that morning? Did they see anything suspicious, or blood, anything at all?

I didn’t worry much that they would lie to him, with his intensity and forcefulness.

“I did it,” one kitchen girl admitted, reduced to tears in the face of Misha’s cold blue gaze. “I stole the strawberry tart off your breakfast tray that morning. I’m so sorry, Your Highness. Please don’t kill me.”

We both stared at her for a moment as she crumpled to the floor, sobbing, arms wrapped around her knees.

Misha glanced to me, used to me being the one to leap to help anyone in tears. I stared back at him, unable to think of how to respond.

Part of me wanted to rage at her. He hadn’t been asking about fucking tarts. He’d been asking about Kirian, and no one gave a damn about tarts. My breath was coming short, and I turned toward her, but Genya—lovely, sweet Evgeny—stood from where he’d been sitting, reading by the fire, and crossed to the girl, pulling her up. He wrapped an arm around her and led her toward the door, shooting a glance back at Misha, complete with rolled eyes, and I wasn’t sure if the exasperation was aimed at the sobbing, or at us.

“No one cares about the tart, dear. They only want to know about the dragon. You’re allowed to eat. Does the kitchen not feed you enough?” He tugged her outside, and a moment later, Pavel ushered the next person to be questioned in, looking bemused. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything.

But of course, there was nothing.

There was a lot of groveling. A lot of tears. A lot of boot licking. Even Zakhar, well known for his strange view on blood bonds, was nothing but sympathetic.

“I’m so sorry, Prince Konstantin,” he said, eyes soft and tone sad. Pitying. Funny, how this made him look more like that dog of his than he ever had before, even though it also seemed somehow put on. “This, of course, is why we worry about blood bonds. It seems to do so much more harm than good.”

Misha snorted. “You’re an ass, and my brother doesn’t need your pity. He needs his dragon.”

The man’s lips tightened, sadness disappearing in an instant as though it had never existed. “If your family hadn’t tied him to a beast, he wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“If my family did not blood bond, Voronezh would be uninhabitable,” Misha snarled back, actually baring his teeth.

For the first time in my life, I truly wondered at the wisdom of blood bonding.

Perhaps Zakhar Laskin and his fellows were right, and blood bonds caused more trouble than good. One had tied poor Kirian to me, and all my ridiculous human problems. Yes, Voronezh had been impossible to live in for half the year before the Vasilievs bonded the land, but maybe . . . maybe Voronezh should be uninhabited. Perhaps humanity was a plague upon the land and dragonkind as well, and everyone would be better off without us.

I didn’t suggest that to Misha, who was angrily telling the man to see himself out and send in the next person, hopefully someone who wasn’t a madman who wanted to see Voronezh in ruins.

But wasn’t everything already in ruins?

Chapter 24

Kirian

In that dark, dank place, there was little to do but despair.

Still, in time, even that lost its hold over me. I still had my mouth, the shapes and sounds that it made, and Pavel had said to prepare my answers. I was Kirian. I could say it, and—

And the inquisitors wouldn’t believe me. But Kostya might.

All he needed was for the clouds to part.

So I practiced. Kostya’s name and my own started with the same hard sound, air trapped by my tongue against the roof of my mouth. The rest was, well, harder.

But I got close, each stammer something like the name Kostya called me. It wasn’t quite right, but it was enough.

When the men finally came, hope filled my chest. I had my answer, and all would be well.

Only, the floor was still cold, still dirty, still hard against my bare feet. And the room that they took me to did not leave any space for hope to hide.

The guard who had led me there removed the cuffs that bound my hands, but he guided me down onto a table. Metal cuffs were there at all four points, and when he closed them over my wrists and ankles, they had screws to tighten and hold me firm.

I was trapped, worse than I’d ever been as a dragon. There might be chains in the dragon stables, but not like this.

Now, I could not move, and my breath came short and fast as I craned my head to try and see.

This place was evil. I could feel it in the stones around me.

I saw it in the eyes of the man who came in next, a bundle under his arm.

He was pale, his hair as starkly white as any Vasiliev I’d ever seen.

He did not have their beauty or fierceness, though. His eyes were dark and sunken. There were lines around his eyes as if he often scowled. Something about this man was starved and wanting.

The guard left me alone with him.

He didn’t acknowledge me right away, but laid out his bundle on a nearby table. The clink of metal drew my attention, but no matter how I strained, I could not see what he had brought.

“They tell me you don’t have a name,” the man said.

He didn’t look at me. He was enamored of his instruments, and I got the feeling I was of no more interest to him than a canvas was to an artist. What interested him was what was beyond me, inside me, and a horrible shiver rushed through my body.

“So I will call you Forgotten.” His lips twitched, and he glanced at me over his shoulder. “For that is what you’ve been, isn’t it? Forgotten by your compatriots, lost in this world.”

Would Kostya forget me too? As I stared into this man’s black eyes, I did not doubt it. Whatever I was and had ever been, he would unhinge his jaw and suck it in, snuff me out in his cavernous maw.

“All you have left to you is the truth. Keep it, Forgotten. Hold it close.” He picked an instrument, it had sharp edges and opened and closed at a point. Slowly, he walked around to my head. I strained my neck to see him, watched as he pressed my hand flat against the stone table beneath me, bent to inspect my fingertips.

An evil smile crossed his face. It was the worst winter Voronezh had ever seen, trapped inside this man. “I will enjoy pulling it from you.”

He straightened enough to meet my eye, and adjusted his pincers against my fingernail. What—what the hell was he doing?

“What do you know of Prince Konstantin’s dragon?”

This was it—all I had practiced for—but it was with an icy twist that I realized this man would not hear me any more than Kostya could see me.

“Kirin,” I stammered.

His pale lips twitched. “Yes, Kirian. That is his name.”

“Me!”

I jolted as the man’s clammy hand closed over my inner arm and braced me down. He hardly needed to, with my body stretched out so far.

But then, he began to pull his pincers. It was an ache at first, then something more. Tearing, ripping.

“Me,” I repeated, frantic and twisting as much as my bonds would allow. “Me, me, me, me!”

As he tore at my claw, and the pain that struck me when he pulled it free blacked out my vision. I screamed. Blood rushed, hot and slick, from my fingertip, and I sobbed.

“Have you seen Prince Konstantin’s dragon?” the man asked.

Already, he was moving onto the next. I fisted my hand, but he brought the plier’s weight down hard on my wrist and the shock of it allowed him the leverage to open my hand again.

“Yes,” I rasped. Tears and snot stifled my voice. “Me. Kirin. Me. Kostya. Kirin for Kostya.”

Another, he tore out of me.

And he kept going, though his questions became less frequent.

When the nails did not work, he moved on to an iron, red hot from the fire.

“Who were you working with?”

I screamed as the iron singed my flesh. I banged my head back against the table at the sharp agony of it. “Kostya!”

Always Kostya. Always.

I tried to think of him, of his bright blue eyes and soft smile, of his little hands on my snout when we flew into the hills. He was mine.

But the pain blotted out even the vision of him, twisting it until I couldn’t remember his face. Everything was warped and red and—and so much pain.

It went on like that, and I tried to answer. I did. Pavel said that it would stop if my answers were clear and truthful.

But in the end, my tormenter only clicked his tongue and smiled down at me.

“Poor Forgotten’s lost his voice, hasn’t he? Perhaps my saw will help you find it.”

“No,” I whined, jerking so hard my wrists threatened to break in the restraints. “No, no, no, no, no, Kirin, no.”

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, but no?

No was not a word I had practiced. It was new, and no matter how many times I said it, it went unheard.

Chapter 25

Kostya

Dasha came to see us.

My beautiful cousin was worried about me, of course. Worried about Kirian. Because that was how she was. Of every member of the Vasiliev family, she was the one who never held a grudge. Who was always sweet and soft and caring.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she was assuring me, patting my fidgeting hands. “He’s a very strong dragon. Nikolai tells me he’s the biggest of them, now.”

“His sire is still bigger,” Misha denied. “Gerasim will always be the biggest.”

That much might well be true, though I doubted it. Uncle Georgiy’s dragon had been the biggest in the stables, the biggest in Voronezh, since his brothers had died.

Everyone put more stock in size than it deserved, though. Misha’s husband, Evgeny, was tiny compared to most of the people I saw daily, but he was ten times as dangerous as them, in my opinion, and not just because Misha had trained him to be deadly with a dagger.

And Kirian? Well, Kirian was an innocent. The sweetest creature ever born, no more inclined to violence than a baby. Yes, he was more dangerous than a baby simply because of his size and a dragon’s ability to snap a human in half without even trying, but that was the extent of the danger he posed.

I rubbed my aching fingers together, unable to think of anything but Kirian, even as Dasha talked about her greenhouse, and her hopes for the flowers this planting season.

Kirian loved flowers.

He was—

The searing, red-hot pain ripped through me, pulling out a cry, and the whole room went silent around me, everyone turning my way.

Kirian. Kirian was in pain. And not just pain, but horrific, burning pain, like he was on fire. Finally, the people who had taken him were showing their hand.

I leapt from my seat and rushed from the room without a word. I didn’t know where Pavel had taken the stranger for sure, but I could guess.

He was with Gavriil, in the dungeon. Gavriil had been one of Uncle Alexei’s many bastard children, but never acknowledged, so he existed in a state of limbo. Everyone knew who and what he was. Knew that if his mother hadn’t been a kitchen maid, he’d be in line for the throne. But Uncle Alexei hadn’t even arranged for him to have a grasshopper for a spirit animal, so Gavriil was alone in every way, and filled with nothing but a deep and abiding hatred for everything around him. He’d taken to the work torturing enemies of Voronezh with relish. He’d probably been disappointed that Dima hadn’t given him my father, but merely executed him. I imagined he wanted to hurt my family—his own unacknowledged, unacknowledging family—more than anyone else.

Another pain ripped through me as I ran, leaving me a panting, sweaty mess even as I kept running. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t collapse right there in the hall of the palace. I had to get to the dungeon, to demand from the stranger where my dragon was. What his people were doing to him. My sweet, innocent Kirian.

I nearly fell and broke my neck on the stairs down, taking them far too fast, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Kirian. Nothing had ever mattered but Kirian.

The dungeon guards looked up as I rushed down the hall, confused but making no effort to stop me or demand what I wanted. I was a Vasiliev, after all.

I crashed through the door at the end of the hall to find Gavriil standing over the stranger, who was strapped down by both hand and foot. His mouth was open, working but making no sound as he formed the word “no” over and over. Gavriil stood over him with a brand, dull red with heat, bits of freshly burned flesh sticking to it.

There was a burn on the stranger’s belly.

Everything inside me froze, as my brain whirled. A burn on his belly. I looked down at the spot my hand was pressed to on my own stomach, thinking of the horrific pain that had led me down the stairs and to the dungeon.

The man’s hands were bloody, multiple fingernails missing, and my eyes drifted to where I’d been twisting my own hands together all morning, assuming the pain was from fear and worry and too damned much fidgeting.

It didn’t make any sense.

It wasn’t possible.

Zoya, sleeping for a week because of an immense working of magic she’d done, that she hadn’t warned anyone about beforehand.

“Unstrap him,” I said, and my voice came out hoarse and broken as I stared into the stranger’s eyes.

No.

Not a stranger.

Kirian.

My Kirian.

As a human.

Those perfect green eyes I’d kept staring into, thinking how they reminded me of my Kirian’s own green. How was I so blind? So useless? How had I . . . oh blood, Gavriil had pulled out his fingernails. Burned him. Because of me. What had I allowed to happen?

“He hasn’t given me any information,” Gavriil answered, bored and annoyed with my presence, not moving to let my Kirian go.

In an instant, I turned on him, wild with anger at the man who’d been causing Kirian’s pain. Perhaps he’d been ordered to, but he had done it. No doubt he’d taken joy in it, as he always did.

I would strip every bit of skin from his hide, one piece at a time, feeding them to him as I went and—

“Kostya,” the stranger—no, Kirian. Kirian sobbed my name. “Kostya. Kostya. Kirin. Kirin me!”

By the blood, he couldn’t even say his own name, still trying to figure out his new tongue, and he simply hadn’t gotten there yet. It took human children a year or better to figure out the language and how it fit in their mouths, and we’d given Kirian less than a week.

I rushed to his side, pressing a hand to his cheek and nodding. “I know. I understand now. I’m going to take you out of here.”

“I’m to question him,” Gavriil said, voice pouty, drawing my attention back to him. I reached for the knife on my belt. Perhaps torture was too much effort. I could simply reach across and slit his throat, be done with him forever in an instant.

“Kostya?” Dasha’s sweet voice broke through the violent impulses running through me. “What’s happening?”

She must have nearly run through the palace, to catch up with me so quickly.

I made my way around the table, putting myself between Kirian and the torturer without looking away from him, then starting to work on the cuffs myself. “It’s Kirian,” I said finally, tugging at the leather. “The stranger. He’s Kirian. He’s”—my voice cracked, and I had to push back the guilt before it overwhelmed me—“he’s human. Kirian is human. And I had him tortured.”

I had tortured Kirian. Perhaps not with my own hands, but did it matter? My whole body shook as I tugged at the strap on his ankle. A moment later, strong, efficient hands joined me in releasing Kirian from the bonds. Dasha’s bodyguard and beloved, Nikolai. He managed to free three of the straps while I struggled my way through the one ankle with trembling fingers.

Despite it all, despite the flare of pain the movement caused, the moment he was free, Kirian threw himself into my arms, whimpering my name over and over again. I ran a hand through his hair. “It’s okay, love. Everything will be okay. I’m taking you out of here. I’m so sorry. I’ll never let them hurt you again. Never. I’m so sorry.”

I apologized again and again, holding him tight against me, trying not to think about it all. To think about how I’d had my love, my very soul, tortured. It would be a long time before the guilt for that left me, if it ever did. But my own feelings didn’t matter. All that mattered then was Kirian. Taking Kirian out of the dungeon and healing him and giving him every bit of softness and comfort in the entire world.

Anyone who stood in my way, I’d kill with my bare hands.

Chapter 26

Kirian

Kostya held me there on a table stained with my blood, and every cry that I’d held back as the evil man hurt me bubbled up to the surface. I sobbed against his chest, each gasping breath pulling at the blistered, weepy skin the man had burnt.

Kostya apologized over and over, but he hadn’t done this. He’d come for me. He’d saved me.

But all the advantages of sensitive human skin had been stripped away in searing iron, and I hated my two legs and my weak human body and my useless tongue.

Finally, finally, he saw me, but I was not who Kostya wanted. I wasn’t the Kirian he expected at his side.

And I bitterly regretted every single choice that had led me to all this darkness and suffering.

Surely I was bad, or things would get better and better instead of worse and worse.

Yet Kostya continued to stroke my hair and hold me close, and in time my panicked, drowning desperation eased. I had him with me, around me, and he saw me now.

That was all I wanted. One day, this might not feel so awful as it did right then.

By the time I lifted my head to take stock of the room, the evil man was gone. He’d left his tools behind, but there was no one in the room for me to fear. Dasha and her man gave the metal instruments a wide berth. But even if they’d meant me harm, with Kostya, his arms around me, the wonderful scent of him there for me to bury into, I was safe.

Pain didn’t matter so much as keeping him close. With my better hand, the one the man had not gotten to yet, I gripped the front of his kaftan and held him tightly.

He bent over me, his very body providing a shield. His lips were close to my ear. “Can we leave this place?”

I swallowed thickly. I didn’t want to ever move again, and I wanted to throw myself into the sky and fly higher and higher and higher with Kostya until there was no one else to ever catch us.

“Yes,” I mumbled against his chest.

It would feel better, to breathe fresher air. And—and I did not want Kostya to see this place, the things that had happened here. I did not want him thinking of them.

They caused him pain. I could feel his sorrow and guilt and hatred like they were my own, and if Kostya was ever to be happy again, he would need fine things. A bright place with a view of the open sky. Books, maybe. The sweet kinds that he sometimes brought on rides and read aloud as we lounged on the hillside.

There was no room in this place for anything fresh or sweet.

He helped me off the table. Though the evil man had not hurt my legs, they shook under my weight. Kostya had to hold me up, but I didn’t mind that when it kept me against his side.

“Nikolai, see that a healer meets us in my cousin’s rooms, please,” Princess Dasha said, ever so quietly.

A healer. I’d never needed one myself.

We made our way slowly out of the dungeon, and I clung to Kostya the whole time. I’d never come back here, never again be in the dark and alone—not if I could help it.

Kostya—he . . . he wouldn’t allow it either. At least, not while I had two legs and fit so comfortably in bed beside him.

We could be together now, surely.

But we’d hardly made it into the palace proper before a guard approached us.

Kostya stiffened beside me, unwilling to meet the man’s eyes.

“Arkadii, now is not the time—”

“The king has called you to an audience. I—” The guard’s eyes fell to me, and I shrank behind Kostya.

They were both dressed well, stood tall. But there I was, still trembling and weak, dressed in something little better than a sack. I wanted to be alone, and Kostya’s rooms already felt so far away.

Kostya frowned. His gaze fell to me.

“Dasha, could you take Kirian back to my room, see him safe?”

I squeaked past a choked throat. “No.”

His brow furrowed, so I shook my head.

That couldn’t happen. I couldn’t lose him. Not again.

“You. Stay. Kostya stay Kirin. Kirin stay Kostya.”

With my good hand, I squeezed him hard. He looked utterly tortured as he met my eye.

Then, his hand closed over mine, and he squeezed me back softly. “All right. We can—we can stay together.”

The guard led the way to a part of the palace that had always terrified me. It was where the old king sat, Alexei, all firm and angry.

Kostya didn’t like this place either, though now it was occupied by his cousin.

The king sat on his throne, his legs spread, his arms draped and his hands dangling lazily over the sides. When he heard us enter, his head rolled strangely, like it was not quite attached to his back. But when he met Kostya’s eye, he straightened.

“I hear you’ve found your dragon.”

There he was, in the shadow of a nearby column—the evil man. He was staying out of sight, but he wanted to watch the pieces he’d toppled fall.

“I have,” Kostya said carefully.

We’d come to a stop before the throne, and pausing dragged the remaining strength out of me. Holding tight to Kostya, I slid to the floor and leaned against his leg. They would have their talk, and I would be with him, but there was no reason for me to stand tall beside him.

The king huffed. “This very day, Arkadii tells me there are complaints of a dragon roaming the countryside eating peasants.”

Kostya’s brows rose, the look hard rather than confused. “If that’s the case, that is indeed concerning, but my Kirian has done no such thing. He’s been here, at my side, this whole time.”

At the very thought of it, I couldn’t help but smile. I turned and pressed my lips against his thigh. The warmth that spread through me, knowing that Kostya knew I’d never left him, had me ready to melt on the floor. I could rest and heal right there.

At least, I could have if it weren’t for Dmitri.

“You’ve gone mad,” the king accused, even as Kostya’s hand settled on the top of my head, his fingers combing gently through my hair to tease my scalp.

The king’s guard made a strange sound, but it went ignored. Only I could feel the tension in Kostya’s fingers against my head.

“I know my own dragon,” Kostya snapped.

Cruelly, Dima’s lips twisted. “Is that so?”

Sadness pulsed through Kostya’s heart. He hadn’t recognized me, but that was because I was impossible. It was nothing else.

All his life he had known me as I’d been. If it took me time to accept how I’d changed, surely he would need time as well.

I squeezed his hand and pressed my cheek against his wrist, the roundness of bone beneath his skin.

“I heard this stranger has been here for days. If you know your dragon so well, why are you just now coming to me with this?”

Kostya did not answer. He bowed his head, his jaw flexed tightly.

I could practically see the same questions running through his head, this time posed as failures.

But what could I do? Dima hated me. Even if I could offer some explanation—and I had none—he would not want to hear it from my lips.

“But say you’re correct, and this creature—this person at your feet really is the beast who hurt my sister, well, shouldn’t he stand a man’s trial for the crime?”

Dmitri sat forward on his throne then, the move so sudden it made me jump. His icy blue eyes were locked on mine.

“And if he’s lying, it’s treason all the same.”

He threw himself out of his seat, sweeping off the dais, a knife in his hand though I was not fast or skilled enough to pick out where he’d drawn it from.

Kostya put himself between us, his hand on his own weapon.

And he was gone. Not at my side.

In danger.

What could I do but try and draw him out of it?

Chapter 27

Kostya

When Dima had killed our father, I had been heartbroken, but I’d understood. Our father had conspired to kill the king, and so his fate had been of his own choosing.

Kirian?

Kirian was a complete innocent. He had hurt Dasha, it was true, by hurting Adorjan, but it had been nothing more than a tragic accident. There had been no malicious intent, no murder plot, and if he’d felt safe, it never would have happened. It wasn’t Dasha’s fault, or Adorjan’s, or Kirian’s.

I shoved myself between the king’s knife and Kirian, hand on the hilt of my own, but I couldn’t bring myself to draw it. I couldn’t stab my own king. My own cousin. However mad he might be, it was through no fault of his own.

Like Kirian when he’d blinded Adorjan, he was frightened and mad with it. It was just that Kirian’s madness had only lasted until he’d heard Adorjan’s pained screech, and Dima’s . . . had lasted a decade.

Still, I could not kill him for it.

I could and would put myself between Kirian and danger, though.

Except that Kirian was trying to do the same, squirm his way between me and the knife, putting his soft abused flesh between me and the king. Between me and danger.

Just like he always did, Kirian wanted to protect me in any way he could.

I pulled him back as Dima came at us, but the throne room was finite, and eventually our backs would find the wall, and someone would have to do . . . something. Something other than retreat.

Dima’s teeth were bared in a feral snarl, and he didn’t even seem to see his bodyguard, Arkadii, as he tried to step between us.

“My king, I don’t think this is what you actually want to—”

“Get out of my way. I’ll gut the monster who tried to kill my sister.”

“My king, he didn’t—”

Without even glancing at him, Dima gave Arkadii a shove, almost putting him off-balance. Well of course it put him off balance, because Arkadii wasn’t supposed to protect people from the king, but the opposite.

“Do you have a defense for yourself, monster? For trying to kill my sister?” Dima demanded, glaring past me like he no longer saw me.

I couldn’t even answer him with a denial, so insistent was Kirian to put himself between us. All my attention was taken up by trying to stop him from squirming in front of me, and not hurt his injuries at the same time. Kirian, for his part, seemed to have forgotten that he was hurt in his quest to protect me.

“Not Kostya,” Kirian insisted, almost breathless at the exertion of trying to protect me. “Not hurt Kostya.”

Dima snarled and lunged forward, knife flashing, when something blue smothered my whole field of vision.

A dress.

Dasha.

Oh no.

I leapt forward, trying to snatch her out of the way of Dima’s knife, at the same time as Kirian broke free and stepped in front of the king, and Dima leapt back, astonishment and horror on his face.

Chapter 28

Kirian

The sound that tore from my throat when Dasha stepped between us was more sob than roar. Dmitri was lost in his fury. He would barrel through her. Kill her where she stood.

That, too, would be my fault.

I would see her hurt, see her bleed, just like I had watched Adorjan burn and seen the light fade from the little princess’s eyes.

I was at the center of all this, always there for the worst. Kostya had been cursed when he had bonded me. There was no other reason for it—I had to be the cause of all this pain.

But Dmitri jerked back, even as I pushed between them. He had—had—

I looked over my shoulder. Kostya gripped Dasha’s arms tight, puckering the blue silk of her dress beneath his fingers.

“Let me go!” She pulled out of his grip, which slackened as soon as he realized there was no puncture on that silk, no sign that the king had thrust his knife into her, no smear of blood, nothing. Even Dmitri with all the rage in his eyes and his rapid anger, had held himself back from hurting her. We had hurt her enough. Even lost, Dmitri could not add to it.

Though she could not see, she stomped forward, gripping my wrist and shoving me back into Kostya’s arms before Dima could regain his senses and try again.

That shook off his startlement. “That beast!” he cried. “That beast would have us lose everything. I want him dead. He will pay his debts!”

But Dasha pressed forward, reaching for her brother, until her hands trapped his face and he was panting, angry as any dragon I’d ever seen, his glare thrown over her shoulder, cutting into me.

He struggled against her, but Dasha held him there, stepping forward until they were toe to toe—one being together.

They had come into this world together, after all, and if there was anyone in Voronezh who could reach him, it was her.

The rest of us could only stare on, waiting for one of them to break free of the other, to win a contest that passed between them in silence and strained limbs.

“This is not us,” Dasha whispered. She had closed her pale eyes. Both her hands framed Dmitri’s face for a moment, until she dropped them to grip his, still wrapped around the bejeweled knife’s hilt.

She was unafraid, as she’d so often been. How did she do that? Was it because she couldn’t see the very worst of us all?

No, no. She’d always been unafraid, and I thought she could see us clearly, if not literally. Though she often thought us kinder than we thought ourselves. It was something else, a strength that ran in her that I had never known.

“It is precisely us,” Dmitri snarled. I had not seen him—not face-to-face—in many years, but this man, he was not the same boy I’d known, surrounded by flowers. It was not the boy who’d been aghast, his world shattered, at the mere idea that his sister could be hurt. That the universe would allow it.

Now, he knew better. The universe would allow all sorts of horrors.

“It has always been us, and it always will be,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “We’ll spill each other’s blood until the land drinks it all, sated and fat and happy from our suffering.” Dmitri’s gasp rattled. “Let me have him. I will bring you his heart. A heart for your eyes, Dasha.”

She shook her head. Her hands were clasped so tightly around her brother’s that the knuckles and tendons made her stretched skin stark white.

“No, Dima. That is not me. It is not you. It’s not Misha or Kostya.”

He jerked in her grip, but she held him firm and pushed up on the balls of her feet to tip her forehead against his.

“We are loyal,” she whispered, voice strained with passionate assurance. “We are loyal to each other, because we must be. The cracks in our family made the cracks in this land—the ones you think we must fill with our blood, but you are wrong, Dima. That will fix nothing. The ground will go soft and crumble beneath us, drowned by all that violence. We won’t do that. We are Vasiliev. We keep the land together—all of us, Dima. All of us.”

He growled, but some of the strain had gone out of him.

He could not fight Dasha. No one could.

All the men in the room, there with their knives, and their muscles trained with hours in the sparring yard, and their fury, and not one of them would stand against her.

“Kostya, go,” she muttered, almost as if Dmitri couldn’t hear her.

Strangely, he didn’t seem to. He was in a daze, allowing her to draw his weapon from his fist, to pass it to his guard.

And Kostya? He was not waiting to see what they would do next.

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out, and I staggered after him.

But in the hallway, quiet as it was compared to the king’s snarling, I could not help but think that he was right.

I had done all of this. I’d hurt Dasha. I’d made Kostya feel as though I’d abandoned him.

I had done so much wrong, and now, I was even weaker than I’d been before.

There was nothing I could do to fix any of it, and all the suffering I’d endured in the dungeon, in those long years in the dragon stables, alone in the dark, was only a fraction of the pain I had earned.

Chapter 29

Kostya

Arkadii held one of the throne room’s double doors open for us and practically shooed us out into the hall, then shut the door with a click behind us. There wasn’t a man in Voronezh I pitied more than the one in love with my mad cousin, trying his best and often failing to hold Dima in check as he went through life like a dragon on a rampage, crushing everything in front of him.

Arkadii couldn’t be my problem, though. I had enough problems of my own, and he was doing as well as anyone could in the circumstances.

I had a tortured, trembling dragon in human form to care for. Dima couldn’t come before that even if I tried to put him there. Kirian was in every inch of my thoughts, every vibration of his body against me as he leaned in, the feeling flowing off him somewhere between torment and ecstasy.

Because he was in horrible pain, but his ignorant human finally understood. Finally knew what he’d been trying to tell me, to show me, for days. That he was him, and I didn’t need to keep looking for him. That I was ridiculous for thinking he’d have ever escaped or allowed himself to be kidnapped. That he was mine, was with me, and would never willingly stop being so.

Every moment of the last week was painted in a different light, suddenly. Finding him wandering out of the dragon stable, and the bright, luminous smile on his face the moment he’d seen me. The joy he’d taken in every tiny thing, from buttered rolls to the feel of grass under his fingers.

Feeling him on top of me, moving inside me.

Yes, that all took on a different hue, knowing that he was Kirian.

Perhaps I should have been horrified or ashamed.

I had quite literally fucked my dragon. It was a derogatory thing southerners called us sometimes, dragon fuckers. I’d always thought they were just jealous of the fact that we had dragon companions. They were fearful, knowing that if we ever looked beyond our borders, death would swoop down on them from above, as it had in the years after Dima took the throne, when our border villages had pushed out in desperation as the land went barren beneath them, and Misha had flown into battle.

Now, I knew they had reason to be jealous of being fucked by dragons as well, since Kirian had been a beautiful, generous, sweet lover.

I’d always known he would be. Not that I’d ever admit to anyone that I’d thought about him that way when he’d been in dragon form. Maybe dragons were every bit as smart as humans, but that kind of thinking was likely to be taken as kindly as saying one found one’s sheep to be the sexiest creatures in existence.

But now, Kirian was human. He was a stunningly beautiful, golden-skinned, green-eyed man, and no one who thought men attractive could look on him and say wanting him was perverse.

I steered him down one hallway and then another, keeping to smaller, back paths, so that we wouldn’t come across anyone along the way. Frankly, if I saw Gavriil ever again, I was likely to gut him. No doubt he’d relished the idea of the Vasilievs killing themselves.

Uncle Alexei had been a complete ass, but perhaps he’d seen something in Gavriil that led him to make the decision to leave him entirely out of the family, too. Perhaps he’d relished murdering small animals as a child. He seemed the type.

Regardless. If I saw his detestable face again, he wouldn’t see another day or hurt another person, ever.

Misha was there in the parlor, pacing, as his husband sat on the chaise reading a book I recognized from my favorite section of our library. They both looked up when we came in. Damn, I hadn’t considered this.

I swallowed hard and tried to find my words, but somehow, Kirian found them for himself.

“Kirin,” he said, surprisingly strident for a man who was still shaking in my arms. “Me Kirin.”

Misha froze and turned his gaze to me, eyes wide. Somehow, he believed, without even asking me for confirmation. But then, why would I be bundling him back into our rooms at all if not for that?

A muscle in my jaw twitched, and I tried not to think of what Kirian had just been exposed to because I’d been unable to see him. We all worried over Dasha’s blindness, but she saw so much more than most of us, while I groped about in the dark.

Instead of grumbling or saying anything rude, Misha strode forward, taking Kirian’s shoulders in his hands and looking him over. “I am so sorry, Kirian. I had no idea. None of us did.”

Kirian smiled at him, and it was weak, wan, but it held not a trace of censure. He reached up and patted Misha’s hand. “P–protect Kostya. You protect.”

Misha swallowed hard and nodded. “But I should have known you would never leave him. Not ever.”

If Misha should have known, where the hell did that leave me? I was the one Kirian had been inside the night before, and I hadn’t realized.

Without hesitating a second, though, Kirian leaned back against me, twisting his neck to look up at me. “Sorry. Sorry not protect.”

He . . . he was sorry.

My heart shattered in my chest, and Kirian’s eyes filled with tears. He whipped his whole body around, patting me softly all over. “No no no no no, not sad. Sorry. Not sad.”

I pulled his face between my palms, trying not to focus on the missing fingernails on one of his hands, or the smell of the clothes he’d been put in, or the drying sweat of pain on his brow. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Not ever. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Somehow, his face turned even more tragic. All he said was “Adorjan.”

Before I could even get myself together to answer that with a litany of how it wasn’t his fault and never would be, something crashed behind him. He leapt against me, not simply in terror—though there was certainly some of that—but turning, plastering his back against me and spreading his arms. As though he would protect me from whatever danger might come. Protect Kostya, he’d said, and clearly, meant it with all his heart.

All there was when I looked to the source of the crash was a mess of glass on the floor. An empty vase that had been sitting on a side table for as long as I remembered—it hadn’t gotten much use in recent years since we had no flowers, and had been ugly anyway, but—

I glanced up at Misha standing over the vase’s remains. Misha, who looked like he was planning to grab a piece of the broken glass and cut someone’s throat with it.

He took one long stride back over to Kirian and me, laying a hand over the base of each of our necks, eyes lit with blue flame the likes of which I hadn’t seen in him in months.

“Stop it. Both of you, stop that. What happened to Adorjan and Dasha was years ago, and it was an accident. They’ve both forgiven you. No one but Dima is still holding it in their hearts, and he’s only doing it because he’s lost his fucking mind.” He squeezed tight, meeting each of our eyes in turn, then let go. “I don’t ever want to hear either of you say you did something wrong again, unless it’s something fucking new, you hear me?”

“I didn’t tell you that Father—”

“I know,” he said, glaring at me. “I remember, but that’s still not new, and you already told me. So stop trying to take on the guilt of the whole world, you ass.”

“What you probably ought to do,” Evgeny said, turning the page on his book and glancing up at us for just a moment, “is go back to bed. Rest. Cuddle. Fuck. You’ve both been dying to do that since he was about fifty times too big for it. No reason to hold back now, though, and nothing better to do.”

My instinct was to cringe that even my brother’s new husband had known about me—about my—but no. There was no judgment in his tone. Only vague interest and . . . and kindness. He looked up again and smiled at me. “Congratulations, both of you.”

And he was right. Whatever hardships he had faced, I was lucky to have Kirian there with me.

Chapter 30

Kirian

Misha-mate was very wise. All I wanted to do—all I had wanted to do, since the moment I’d woken up with Kostya’s soft, warm body beside mine—was lay in bed with him. Touch him. Find ways to be close to him that made him smile.

It did not matter. Even pressing my face into the crook of his neck, having it fit there so perfectly, was wonderful. Now, I fit in his world like I never had before.

I wanted him to hold me, and I wanted to forget about the dark room in the dark dungeon and all that’d happened there. By the blood, I wanted to forget the rest of the world entirely.

Only, we didn’t even make it to Kostya’s quiet room with the serene view of the dragon stables and the countryside beyond. There was a knock on the door, and Nikolai returned, a healer in tow.

Kostya led us to his room, and I sat on the edge of the bed on the blue velvet coverlet. It’d been made by some servant in the aftermath of everything, but I wished they’d left it alone. I rather liked the idea of a rumpled nest for just the two of us.

Still the healer had come for a reason, and we could make a nest when he was through.

I didn’t think I was in any serious danger. The man in the dungeon had hurt me, but I was a dragon. Losing claws, feeling the burning iron on my skin? Those were terrible things, but I was a dragon.

The man in the basement was a worm of no consequence.

The healer helped me out of the rough tunic I wore. He looked me over, starting with the burn. It was just beneath my ribs, where the flesh went soft again, about as long as a hand was wide with its fingers extended. My skin, so exposed, so fragile compared to the scales I’d been born in, had already blistered.

The healer seemed to think that was a good thing. He moved onto my hand.

That, he liked less.

When he clicked his tongue, Kostya stepped up close.

“Is something wrong?” Kostya was pushing forward. His leg bumped my knee as he leaned over, blocking some of the light from the windows.

Strangely, that was better than having him hold himself back, out of the way.

I wanted him close, even to the detriment of all else.

The healer did not share that opinion.

He gave Kostya a flat look. “Nails grow back, my prince. Assuming he can avoid contamination until his wounds have healed, there is no reason to think he won’t make a full recovery. And, were an affliction of the blood to present itself, your sister would have more knowledge of such a thing than I.”

Kostya was chewing his lower lip, as if he couldn’t stand even the thought of waiting even a little while for all to be well.

“Zoya is exhausted,” he mumbled, and something like anger made him turn away.

I caught his hand to keep him close, and smiled at the healer. In the wild, dragons didn’t smile. We snarled and when we showed our teeth, it was a threat.

But those of us who’d been raised alongside humans had picked up their habits.

“Kostya.” I took the bandages, the salve, from the healer’s hands.

My Kostya was in one of those spiraling, lost, helpless moods that usually sent him to the stables. He would find me, and we would fly away from here, and after a while, he would feel better.

But I couldn’t fly him anywhere like this. I was stuck on two feet.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t help. More important than flying or escape, I thought, was just giving Kostya something to do—a way to busy his hands to do something good.

Too often, the only way to do that was to leave the palace behind. Now, he could help me.

Kostya was scowling at me, but I thrust the supplies out at him. “You, please.”

He grimaced, as if he weren’t sure he could manage, like he couldn’t help as well as the healer could.

As Kostya looked to him for help, the healer shrugged. “Apply the salve liberally. Keep any open wounds bandaged. If he takes a fever, there’s a foul odor, or the skin becomes inflamed, call for me. Or see what your sister can do. None of us know magic like she does.”

“Go now,” I said to the healer. That was plenty of information, and I already knew that Kostya could care for me. He’d done it better than any servant in the stables, and would do it better now too.

Still, his expression was twisted with pain as he took the supplies from my hand and set to cleaning and tending each of the fingertips of my right hand.

He was gentle, cupping my hand by the heel of my palm, his fingers stretching across the inside of my wrist to steady me. His touch was light, like he was holding a baby bird. His expression was oh-so serious.

He cared. Blood, I could feel in my marrow how deep his concern was.

He wanted to fix everything right then and there—everything in the whole world. It was silly, and it was sweet, and I loved him for it.

But I couldn’t have his thoughts spiraling like that.

I wiggled forward to perch on the very edge of his bed, spreading my legs to accommodate him standing between them. Kostya huffed, his frown deepening, but when I set my chin against his stomach and looked up, he met my eye.

“I’m not done,” he lamented. “There’s still the burn.”

He could touch it if he wanted—put any treatment on it he liked—so long as he stopped feeling so heavy with guilt.

“Kostya,” I whispered, tilting my head up, pulling on his wrist to bring him close to me.

My Kostya could deny me nothing. I brushed my lips across his own, a soft invitation for something more.

The sound he made was trapped and unpleasant. I let go of his wrist. Didn’t he like it? Didn’t he like me?

His eyes were shut for a moment too long. When he opened them, they moved, scanning every inch of my face, looking for something. I didn’t know what, or I’d have given it to him in an instant.

“I–I don’t know if I can,” he whispered.

I blinked—yes, a bit too fast, my eyes a bit too watery—and shook my head. “Mine, Kostya. My heart.”

That’s what he was—my whole heart—and I couldn’t watch him tear himself apart.

Chapter 31

Kostya

Broken.

My Kirian was broken, hurt both mentally and physically in ways he’d never before experienced, and it was, in large part, my fault. No, I hadn’t known it was him, but shouldn’t I have? Shouldn’t I have recognized him the instant I’d seen him outside the stables?

And every bad thing that had happened in the meantime could be laid on the fact that I hadn’t. That I’d instead looked at him and seen a stranger. I’d looked into the eyes of my own soul and seen nothing at all.

If it weren’t for the fact that I knew Kirian was all that was good and pure and perfect in the world, I’d have thought perhaps my very soul was empty.

It was truly a confusing issue.

How could I, a hopeless bungler, have a soul as beautiful as Kirian so tied to me? Yes, I knew we weren’t the same exact person, but the tie was . . . it was more than anything anyone without a soul bond could feel.

And yet, I had missed it. Missed him, when he had been sitting right next to me.

Even now, he kept reaching out and taking my hand when I started to slip into a self-flagellating hate spiral, squeezing it, reminding me that I had to take care of him. Then smiling at me with those soft, perfect, trusting eyes.

How did a monster like me, or any Vasiliev ever, deserve anyone as perfect as him?

Yes, I loved my family. My brother and sister were the most important people in my world, my cousins not far behind them. My parents had been the center of our universe, all things orbiting them. I even liked Uncle Georgiy, most days.

But with the exception of Dasha, I couldn’t think of a single one of us that could be called soft or innocent.

We were hard, like Voronezh.

And sometimes, hard became brittle, and we broke into jagged shards that threatened to cut everyone around us into ribbons. Like my father. Like Dima.

Without Kirian, I would have done the same long ago.

His soft hand on mine drew me once more to the present. He didn’t wince when I dressed his wounds, only watched me with those soft eyes that said . . . that he loved me.

As much as I loved him.

It felt almost impossible, for anyone to know me as he knew me and still even like me, let alone love me . . . but there he was. Those plush lips, with their tiny secretive smile as he watched me wrap his fingers one by one. Those perfect soft green eyes, not even wincing as I touched the raw skin beneath his ribs with the salve the healer had left, acting as though his injuries were nothing at all.

No, he was more worried about the dark circles under my eyes, as proven by the way he reached out to touch one, concern marring his expression only then, and not when I’d bandaged his side.

His side where Gavriil had burned him, because I had allowed that. Had practically ordered it, in fact, jumping to conclusions after finding his own scale in my bed.

I still wasn’t certain where it had come from, that scale, since he hadn’t turned to or from a dragon in the night. Did he still somehow shed scales at random while human? It seemed unlikely, but I couldn’t think of another reasonable possibility.

“Do you know where that scale came from?” I asked, trying to distract myself. Trying not to think about what I’d done, all because of one damned scale.

His eyes went even sadder, and he shook his head, running his fingers down my cheek. Like I was the wronged party, to be pitied, when he was the one who’d been tortured.

I was all set to sink into a pool of self-hatred when he made a tiny whining noise, and when my eyes snapped back to his, they were watery, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth so tight it was leaving pale indentations in the pink skin.

How could I keep thinking only of myself and my own shame, when looking into those eyes?

“Sorry,” he whispered, finally letting go of his bottom lip.

I shook my head as I finished wrapping the last bandage, then I climbed up onto the bed next to him, wrapping my arms around his tortured body, careful not to touch anything sensitive or injured. I lay my head on his shoulder and pulled him down into the nest of pillows there, kissing his cheek and trying to force all the tension out of myself.

It didn’t work terribly well, but after a few minutes, my body started to relax. Just being in his presence did that to me.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I whispered to him. And with that, it was like the dam inside me broke. All the things I usually said to Kirian came pouring out, from how much I loved him and how perfect he was, to how worried I’d been. How much I’d missed him.

When I got to that, he started shaking his head. “Here. Kirin here.”

I went to kiss his cheek again, but he deftly dipped his head so that I caught his lips instead.

“Always here,” he said when I pulled away to look at him. With his good hand, he squeezed my hip tight, pulling me against him. “Always.”

And I understood.

He would never have run away as I’d thought he had. He would accept the torment of the stables forever. The torture Gavriil had put him through. He would never even consider anything that took him from my side, even if it was best for him.

Because in his mind, I came first.

I’d been tortured by the thought of him willingly leaving me alone, but at the same time happy for him, at the thought he might be free and happy out in the mountains somewhere, no longer in his dark stable cell. This was precisely like that, like me hoping that he was happy and free without me. Because he cared more about me having what I needed, having his support and being protected, than about himself.

What a fine, disastrous pair we were.

Chapter 32

Kirian

Iwatched as Kostya fell asleep, his head on my shoulder, his cheek pressed flat, his lips slightly parted.

He was beautiful like this, relaxed and comfortable and in my arms. We’d napped together before, on sunny days on grassy hillsides, but it wasn’t like this. Back when I was a dragon, I couldn’t feel his heartbeat through my ribcage, how my own sang with his. I couldn’t see his face so close to mine, the subtle twitch of his lips as he dreamed.

He had pretty lips. I’d always found him beautiful, but now, I was fixated on that mouth.

Maybe it was that now, I knew how he melted into a kiss. I knew how he tasted.

With a satisfied rumble, I turned toward him to press my own lips against his forehead. I buried my nose in his soft hair.

Kostya was my own. How lucky was I to have him like this?

A sound—the soft click of a latch and sweep of a door—froze me, but I couldn’t see the shadow against the dim light beyond them when I peered past Kostya toward the one exit. Someone stood there in the door, but they didn’t rush in.

“It’s all right,” a woman whispered, slipping inside the room. “It’s only me.”

My eyes were slower to adjust to the dark than they’d been when I was on four legs, but the light coming in from the large balcony was enough. The sun had set and everything was in shades of deep blue, but as Zoya stepped closer, her face came into focus.

She looked at Kostya between us. “Is he still asleep?”

I nodded.

“Good. Good.”

He had needed the rest. As much as I had endured these past days, at least I had known myself and where I stood. Kostya had felt abandoned and afraid. Now, he slept like the dead.

“Misha told me what happened.” Zoya had come to a stop beside the bed, but she didn’t come closer or lean against it enough to jostle Kostya. “You were hurt.”

I swallowed. That was true, but it was better not to think about it. As the healer had said—claws grew back.

“Misha’s angry I didn’t tell anyone ahead of time. Said it was my fault.”

All the Vasilievs, looking for someone else to blame because they were hurt, they felt vulnerable, and they had to shore up their defenses before their enemies noticed.

“Kostya will be too,” she whispered.

Even in the dark, I could tell she was every bit as exhausted as Kostya. Her hair hung limp, flattened from time spent in bed. Her eyes were sunken, her skin strangely pale. She should still be in bed, resting.

“He won’t understand why I didn’t say anything.”

I made a sound. Really, I wasn’t sure I understood either. Zoya had changed me, and then she’d left me. She’d abandoned me to figure out a bigger world all on my own.

“Misha says you barely speak.”

I hummed.

“Can you?” she asked.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Learning.”

Satisfied with that, she nodded. Perhaps she hadn’t known what I would be able to do—what I wouldn’t. I’d never heard of anything like my transformation before, so why would she assume what I’d be capable of?

She drifted forward, peering down at her brother.

I wanted to be angry with her for letting Kostya feel so abandoned, but there was something in the way she held herself, the loose exhaustion of her body, that kept my spite at bay. Perhaps Zoya had done the best she could, and when she looked at her brother—at my Kostya—I saw only love and worry in her eyes.

“He needed someone.” After a moment, she shook her head, her black curls sweeping over her shoulder. “He needed you. A partner at his side, someone who can see all the ways he slights himself, help him stand tall when he feels like shrinking.”

Surety coursed through me. She was right—Kostya needed me and always had, just as I needed him.

“And he’d not accept any other at his side while you were held apart in that fucking cell. I could only see the one way to get you out of it and plant you where he needed you.” She reached down, her fingers twisting around a lock of his silver hair. It shone like moonlight in the dark, so different from her own midnight black.

He made a soft sound and cuddled closer to me, as if he thought it was my hand in his hair. Perhaps it should be. If he liked the feeling, I would toy with his hair at every opportunity.

“But I didn’t know if I could do it,” Zoya whispered. “I didn’t know how dangerous it’d be. I thought, if I told him first what I intended, he would refuse, thinking it too big a risk for you to take on for his sake. Too big a risk for me.” She withdrew her hand from him and scoffed so softly that I barely heard the words “self-sacrificing idiot.”

Through my nose, I huffed. Self-sacrificing? Yes, my Kostya was that. But he was the wisest and best in all things.

Her lips twisted wryly when she met my glare, but she wasn’t afraid of me. I had a feeling, even if I’d been in the body of the biggest dragon in all of Voronezh, she wouldn’t have been. “I didn’t intend for things to go quite how they did, but . . . would he have been right? Was this too much?”

I looked away from her, allowing my gaze to drift over Kostya’s pale eyebrows, his cheekbones. He was warm against me.

In truth, there was nothing I wouldn’t do, wouldn’t sacrifice, to have him with me. Zoya had given me the chance to spend my days at Kostya’s side. I could be with him, even when he could not get away to fly. We could eat delicious treats from each other’s fingers.

We could fuck, and I swear, I’d never felt anything like the harmonious joy of moving with him, chasing our pleasure together.

It was flying and it was so much more than that.

Swallowing roughly past the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me, I looked up at Zoya again.

“No,” I whispered. My arms tightened around Kostya. “Mine. I—I want . . . ” I couldn’t help returning my gaze to him. He was all I longed to see. “Kostya.”

Zoya’s nod drew my eye back up again. There was something soft in her smile.

“Good,” she said simply. She turned away, and I thought she was going to leave, but she lingered there, frozen in the dark.

“I never meant to hurt you, Kirian.” She was still looking away, head tipped slightly downward. “I’d no more hurt you than I’d hurt Kostya. I hope you know that.”

Truth told, Zoya terrified me. Her magic made my blood run cold. The fact that she had no bonded creature felt strange and terrifying—even more so than that the servants in the stables didn’t have any.

I didn’t expect that amount of humanity from them. They simply did not have a soul big enough to share with another.

Zoya’s lack, in contrast, felt like a void, something empty that would pull me in and twist me up—if I weren’t already bonded, anyway. I now had Kostya to keep me safe.

And she was right—he was her brother, and I belonged to him. She’d never meant me harm.

“I know,” I whispered.

She nodded and swept from the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Even if she meant us no harm, a weight lifted the moment we were alone again and I could sink into the soft pillows with my face buried in Kostya’s hair.

Chapter 33

Kostya

Waking up with Kirian was entirely different when I knew it was him.

There was no yawning pit of shame in my belly, knowing I’d been distracted by sex while Kirian was missing. There was only my perfect, gold-green dragon, stretched across my bed.

Now, knowing the truth, I had no idea how I’d ever missed it.

The languorous way he lay across the sheets, sinewy muscles lithe and clearly draconic. Everything about him was Kirian. His eyes, yes, certainly. But his position—the way he sprawled, taking up more room than anyone else his size, even though he wasn’t small. The loose limbs. The slow, lazy blink of his bright eyes as he gazed up at me. Even the way his smile looked like he was trying to remember how to make the expression, more than it being natural to his face.

Not that Kirian wasn’t naturally happy, dragons simply didn’t smile like this. None but Kirian. When Maraht bared his teeth in a parody of a human smile, it was often with the intention of making people shit themselves in fear. Kirian had always been trying to make himself seem less threatening, not more.

He reached up to cup my cheek as he woke, the soft look in his eyes like waking up to my face was the single best thing that had ever happened to him.

Better than waking in Gavriil’s domain, I supposed, with a twinge of self-hatred. Immediately, my eyes searched out his bandages, checking them for fresh blood.

There was none, but I should change them anyhow. The healer said they should be changed daily, to keep the wounds from getting dirty and becoming inflamed. I would spend the rest of my life changing them constantly if it kept Kirian well.

“Eat?” Kirian asked, and his voice was raspy from sleep, but so hopeful, I couldn’t have said no if I’d wanted to.

So I smiled over at him and nodded. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Breakfast.”

“Break-fast,” he mimicked, sounding the word out one bit at a time. It was still a little off, but I imagined if I’d spent my life with a dragon’s long tongue and muzzle, I’d have struggled a lot more with a thick, clumsy human tongue.

So I changed his bandages, and . . . he was healing rather faster than I’d have expected. As fast as a dragon. I didn’t know why that surprised me, that a dragon in human form was still essentially a dragon. The wounds were closed, if not healthy, and while his fingernails were still gone, there was no blood and no redness or swelling around the injuries.

It was as good as it could be, under the circumstances.

The morning took an odd twist when we went to join my family for breakfast and found Dasha sitting in Zoya’s seat. I had a moment’s worry about Zoya, still exhausted to the point of sleeping constantly.

Yes, I was annoyed with her as well. She’d done a massive working of magic. Kirian’s human state had to be because of her, and her collapse had to be because of that. And she hadn’t spoken to me about it at all, before or after. Admittedly, she’d been mostly unconscious after, but by the blood, she should have asked before performing an immense spell on my best friend.

She could have killed one or both of us, or herself, and no one would have ever known what had happened.

Dasha smiled in my direction when the door opened. “Kostya? Is that you? And . . . and Kirian?”

“Yes,” I agreed automatically, before glancing at Kirian. His eyes were filled with sadness when he looked at her. They always had been, since the accident, but it was even more obvious on his expressive human face than it had been on the dragon one.

“Isn’t this exciting?” she asked the room at large as she turned back toward the table. “Dima is sleeping in, so I thought I’d break my fast with you this morning. Misha said it was fine, but—”

“Of course it’s fine.” As though I would ever deny Dasha anything. Even before the accident, it had been near-impossible to say no to her. “There’s always room for you at our table.”

In this case, there was more than enough room around the table because Misha’s husband was sitting on his lap as they fed each other morsels of food. It was something to watch. Evgeny offered Misha a sausage, and Misha answered with a piece of bread so smothered with cherry jam that it hardly looked like there was bread beneath. It wasn’t something Misha himself would have eaten, so it was clearly intended for his husband.

When Evgeny ended up with jam smeared across his lips, Misha kissed it away.

I did not stare at Kirian longingly. Kissing jam off his lips was not appropriate for us. We weren’t married. We were a man and his dragon, eating with a woman we’d once wronged horribly.

“I had to come,” Dasha said, turning in our direction as I led Kirian to the sofa on one side of the table. Her ability to hear and turn toward movement was a rival to any warrior I’d ever known, even Misha. “After Dmitri’s . . . problem in the throne room yesterday, I realized perhaps there were some things that still needed clearing between us all.”

Misha’s lips tightened, but he didn’t scoff aloud at the mention of Dima’s “problem.” It was quite a breakthrough for my brother, because “problem” was far too kind a way of putting it, and normally Misha wouldn’t have hesitated to say so, whether he’d been there to see it or not.

“Sorry,” Kirian said, apropos of nothing at all as he sat down on the side of the sofa closest to Dasha. Hesitantly, he reached out toward her hand, but hesitated. “So, so sorry.”

Dasha—and Nikolai—had no reservations at all. When he saw Kirian reach out, Nikolai did the same, taking Dasha’s hand and placing it in Kirian’s. He whispered something in her ear, maybe whose hand she was holding, and she turned giant watery pale eyes on Kirian.

“I accept your apology. Adorjan accepts your apology. Now you have nothing left to be sorry for. Accidents happen, and I am perfectly fine. As is Adorjan. We’re both quite spoiled, in fact.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Really, everyone gives me everything I could possibly want. What do I have to complain of?”

A tear fell from Kirian’s eye, and he did nothing to hide it or wipe it away—he didn’t even seem to notice it. My father’s words about men crying came to mind, and in an instant, blew away like autumn leaves in the wind. No one would tell Kirian it was unmanly to cry. He was not a man to begin with, and anyone who ordered him about would answer to me.

The smile he gave Dasha made the room feel like the sun had just come out, and somehow, even she seemed to notice it. She smiled back, squeezing his hand and continuing to hold onto it as she turned to the table. “Now then. What do we have for breakfast? Perhaps you can help me find the choicest bits.”

And because he was Kirian and she was Dasha, not because he felt guilty any longer, he did.

Chapter 34

Kirian

Breakfast was wonderful. Food was wonderful. Dasha was wonderful and Kostya was wonderful and even Misha and his clever husband, too caught up in themselves to pay any of us much mind, were wonderful.

The clothes that Kostya had made for me were brought to his room—those that’d already been tucked away in that dank little room in the servants’ quarters I’d been given, but also others.

Things upon things upon things appeared, each of them for me to enjoy. I didn’t know what to do with such bounty.

But I did know what to do with Kostya.

I could keep him close and listen to his sweet words and hear all his troubles. I’d been listening to him forever, and I’d always thought him especially wise and clever.

He was soft-spoken with me, and now that he knew I was at his side, we picked up as if nothing had changed. Only now, I didn’t have to leave him. I could break my fast at his side and sleep beside him and kiss him whenever I liked—though he remained more reserved in that than he’d been that night on the ramparts.

A few days later, Kostya was called away by some issue of stores or deficits or strange human concerns that I did not understand. He left me behind in the Vasiliev rooms.

Though we weren’t confined to the suite all the time, now that I was firmly planted there, I hesitated to leave the rooms without him. Too likely it was to imagine getting swept along and pulled away from him again, but Kostya’s family knew me and would keep me close.

That was how I found myself sitting with Genya and Misha over tea.

Normally, Genya took tea with the ladies while Misha was out riding Maraht. Or, well, if they were still together, they had hands on each other and would find some comfortable place to divest themselves of their clothes and have one another.

But that afternoon, I suspected they’d settled in and refrained for the express purpose of keeping me company, and Genya was determined to keep my cup full of something, even offering vodka once I’d had my fill of tea.

“It would be best if your enemies didn’t find out about him,” Genya said to Misha, even as he was peering at me over the rim of his cup. I still wasn’t comfortable talking—I was working on it, getting better, but I felt so behind. I understood much, but I couldn’t keep up with their quick tongues and clever wits. Humans had a language all their own that wasn’t all mired in sound like it initially seemed, but masked in tricks where you might think you were talking of one thing only to find out it was all innuendo for something entirely else. “No offense, but the Vasilievs hold power in Voronezh because of their dragons. You being human could make Kostya, make all of them, seem vulnerable.”

Misha’s lips disappeared in a thin line. He exhaled, the sound blustering through flared nostrils. “Courtiers are always looking for a place to slip the knife in.”

For some reason, this made Genya glare. He swatted Misha’s forearm with the backs of his fingers. “Not funny.”

Misha chuckled, leaning in to pass a kiss over his husband’s dark curls. “Darling, you know precisely what to do with a knife and I’d be a fool to ever doubt it.”

This seemed to satisfy Genya.

“Maraht?” I asked. Surely there were still plenty of dragons to keep the Vasilievs safe, even if I wasn’t among them.

A smile crossed Misha’s face at the very mention of his best friend, a dragon as good as my brother.

“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t think the risk lies in thinking we might lose one dragon, so much as the court realizing that my brother’s soul is open to attack, walking around all soft and vulnerable, unable to defend himself.”

That seemed to have a simple solution.

“Stay here and safe,” I promised, glancing around the room.

Genya shook his head. “People will whisper if Kostya disappears entirely. You can keep hidden for a while, but secrets don’t stay secret long in a place like this. Better if we come up with another explanation so you can be at his side freely.”

“Your mother’s well respected at court,” Misha offered.

With a hum, Genya nodded. “I’m sure she’d go along with it if we were to spread the story you’re a country cousin of ours. Court loves a mystery, and you shouldn’t have to say much. We’ll go for a reserved, taciturn sort of character, but you’ll have to lose that bewildered grin you give everything. It’s far too sweet, too innocent, too pleased, to belong in Voronezh.”

It was . . . true enough. Genya’s smile was soft and comforting when he meant it to be, but it had a funny way of turning sharp. Misha’s had been a challenge for as long as I’d known him. My Kostya smiled at me, and Dasha’s was pure as the first snowfall. But when I thought about the servants at the stables and the people I had seen walking the palace halls, they did not often smile.

They weren’t surprised or delighted by anything.

I couldn’t help feeling like I had done everything wrong, and in the process, opened Kostya up to danger.

Genya sensed my unease. He leaned forward, gathering both my hands up in his own. His were like silk, pale and soft, with long fingers and delicate bones.

“I will help you,” he swore. “We will. We’ll hide you in plain sight.”

Misha smirked. “I don’t know what help I’ll be.”

I stared at him, and the sharpness of his expression dulled. “Evgeny is a master at courtly manners. He can guide you through dealing with . . . people.” The way he said that, rich with disdain, made it quite clear he’d prefer a dragon in any form to the people of court, and strangely, his husband could only stare adoringly at him for it.

Misha settled his hand on my shoulder, the weight of it warm and firm. “When it’s time for you to learn to defend yourself, that’s where I’ll come in. You are our family, Kirian. There’s not one among us who’d leave you to navigate this alone.”

I stared, my lip beginning to tremble with emotions I could not name.

I had never had a family before. A sire, yes, though I hardly knew him. There was Maraht. But I had always assumed that all good things, all tolerance for me, had come through Kostya—because he was loved.

And there I sat, while he was gone, with his family promising that I counted among them.

Hastily, I blinked the feeling away before it could overwhelm me, and I nodded.

Yes, yes. I’d try anything, do my best to learn all that I could. I’d do whatever it took for me to earn this spot here and keep my transformation from bringing any more danger to Kostya’s door.

Chapter 35

Kostya

Waking up to Kirian’s human face was almost too good to be true, and I was swiftly getting used to his human guise. The burnished hair, the sparkling eyes, the wide, open expression . . .

He was simply Kirian, in any form, and it pained me to think on how long it had taken me to realize who he was.

It took me some time to set up the horseback riding lessons for him, since I wanted just the right teacher. One who could ride a horse better than me, who was patient and kind, and would be the same to my Kirian. I didn’t want to have to kill anyone for being unpleasant to him.

Still, there we were standing in the middle of a fence-ringed field with one of the best riding instructors the palace had to offer.

Vladislava had, in fact, taught me to ride a horse. She’d never despaired at the pointlessness of teaching a dragon rider to ride a horse—quite the opposite, in fact. She’d been calmly efficient, pointed out the differences and similarities, and informed me why it was important to know how to ride anything that could be ridden, and what the names for everything were.

“You learn a skill inside and out, Prince Konstantin, and you begin to realize why the rules exist, not simply what they are. You do not simply know, you understand.”

And she had been right, as much as I’d been annoyed as a child.

Kirian’s problem wasn’t annoyance or childish arrogance. It was fear. He wasn’t specifically afraid of the horses, but of many things, I realized, and that fear was made up of at least half fear for me. I tried to reassure him as much as I could, but he only seemed more concerned when I stepped close to the horse and tried to demonstrate how harmless it was.

Finally, Vladislava stuffed carrots in his pockets and told him to go feed each and every one to the horse we were working with, and not come back to me until every single carrot was gone.

“I thought they shouldn’t have that many carrots,” I whispered to her as Kirian took to the task with stiff shoulders, biting his lip. “Is it going to give her a bellyache?”

She snorted. “She shouldn’t have that many carrots every day, no. But I cannot give your boy pockets of oats to feed her by hand, and this is what he needs. Two pockets of carrots will not hurt a horse.”

I looked on as Kirian slowly, painstakingly worked his way through feeding the horse the first carrot, then the second. “Why does he need the carrots?”

“He needs to understand what she cares about. He needs to feel safe. He’s like a pup who needs to be reminded that just because the humans could hurt him, it doesn’t mean they want to.” Then she lifted a pointed gray brow at me. “Did someone step on his tail?”

I tried not to scowl at the memory of Gavriil and the dungeon, and the bloody horrors I’d found there. The memory of Dima waving a knife in his face, and the two of us trying to protect each other from the danger of my mad cousin. From the knowing expression on her face, I suspected I’d failed.

“Never you mind about it. We’ll get him taken care of. He’s a clever boy. He was clever when you were riding him, and since he already knows how to be ridden, it will be easy for him to understand how to ride and respect the horse. He just needs to stop slithering before we get there. He’s a wyrm, not a worm.”

The words sounded exactly alike spoken, but I understood her point. The problem was that Kirian had spent too long being treated as though he were a worm from the ground, so he held himself low and ashamed instead of tall and proud.

Perhaps once again, too much like me.

Somewhere between the third and fourth carrot, a tiny smile had crept onto Kirian’s face as he looked at the horse. He glanced up at me, and I could see on his face that he was thinking of the times I’d given him his own treats. Haunches of meat and such, but also, his favorite, the occasional loaf of crusty bread straight from the kitchen. He’d always enjoyed the way it crunched between his teeth.

“Pay attention to what you’re doing, boy,” Vladislava called to him. “Or she’ll bite your fingers off and it’ll be your own fault.”

Instantly, Kirian’s head started to turn back toward the horse—but he stopped halfway and turned back, concern clouding his gaze as he dropped his hands to his sides and looked at a spot behind me. The horse nosed at him in concern, or at least in a demand for more sweets, but Kirian turned and started walking toward us.

That seemed a bad sign, so I turned to look at who was coming. The expression of worry on Kirian made even less sense for a moment when I caught sight of Dasha and Nikolai striding toward the pen. But then I truly took note of the concerned looks on their faces and purposeful stride.

“I think I’ll just take the horse inside,” Vladislava murmured behind me, because she knew as well as I did that the looks on their faces meant only one thing: Kirian and I would have no time for riding after all.

A moment later, just before Dasha and Nikolai arrived, Kirian came to my side, leaning into me, the concern I could feel inside him mirrored completely on his face.

Nikolai leaned down and whispered something to Dasha as they met up with us, and she nodded sharply, turning her head toward me. “Kostya, I am sorry to be a bother, but I need your assistance.”

“Of course,” I agreed instantly. “Anything we can do to help.”

She smiled at that, the expression lighting up her whole face as it always did, and she turned slightly toward Kirian, inclining her head. “I am sorry to interrupt your lessons. Riding is so important. But . . .”

She didn’t trail off because of nerves, or because she didn’t want to explain, but, I realized a moment later, because she was very near to complete panic. She was breathing heavily, and not with exertion. The emotion shining in her eyes was fear, pure and simple.

Nikolai had a hand on her back, but he looked to me instead of leaping to the rescue as he clearly wanted to. “Adorjan is missing. We know Zoya didn’t make her into a human, but we don’t know where she is.”

For a second, I stared at him in abject horror. Of course Zoya hadn’t changed Adorjan. She couldn’t have even if she’d wanted to. She was still recovering from changing Kirian and didn’t have nearly the strength for such a thing. Even if she could have, why would she?

It perhaps begged the question of why she’d changed Kirian, but I had . . . suspicions about that. Suspicions that didn’t apply to Dasha or Adorjan.

Regardless of any of this, it meant that the stables had lost yet another dragon. A second in as many weeks. Perhaps they couldn’t have been expected to know that Kirian had turned into a human, but Adorjan—if they couldn’t protect a sweet, blind dragon who had quite literally never hurt anyone, what could they manage?

What use was the stable at all?

Without warning, Dasha lunged forward, throwing herself at me. With anyone but her, I’d have assumed it was an attack and reached for my sword. For Dasha? I opened my arms. She fell into them, sniffling. “She’s afraid, Kostya. So frightened. But determined and she won’t come back. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what she’s doing or why she’s gone. But she can’t be out there alone. She simply cannot.”

I ran one hand up and down her back, making soothing nonsense noises for a moment, and meeting Nikolai’s eye over her head. He was suffering as well, the poor man. He didn’t have a soul dragon he could send out after Adorjan. His wolf couldn’t fly at all, and certainly couldn’t track a dragon, impressive as it was to be bound to such a wild creature.

He met my eye steadily, though, and when he was sure my attention was on him, he mouthed the words, “Danik is missing as well.”

Danik. The king’s dragon. But the king himself was in attendance at court, so Danik shouldn’t be away from the palace. I wondered if Nikolai had told Dasha about the other missing dragon or not. It wasn’t like him to keep things from her—he above all others contended that Dasha could do nearly anything she could have done with her sight. Perhaps he simply didn’t want to remind her of another distressing subject.

Or perhaps he, like others, thought that the king and Danik were responsible for razing the town of Dobryanka to the ground not long ago, and didn’t want Dasha to have to worry about what Danik was doing while Adorjan was missing.

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was simple enough. While I didn’t currently have a dragon to ride, Dasha had come to me for help. I would . . . I would ask Misha to help us, of course, but then Kirian and I would do whatever was necessary to find Adorjan safe and bring her home. We owed the two of them everything, and whatever it took, we would give Dasha this.

Chapter 36

Kirian

Perhaps Kostya could have helped Dasha right away, if I were still a dragon. The only way to find one of us quickly would be to fly across the mountain range, to smell a dragon’s brimstone scent on the air and feel the wind currents against our scales.

The world made more sense from up in the air, but I could not bring Kostya there. So he brought us to his family’s rooms.

It wasn’t long before all of us, then Misha and Genya as well, were packed around their dining table. Misha wanted to bring the missing dragons back—whether they liked it or not.

Kostya was worried about finding them.

Genya was afraid Misha would get himself and Maraht both killed.

And I didn’t know what to say. Dasha was heartbroken and afraid, something beyond herself holding her right on the edge of panic.

I couldn’t help thinking it was Adorjan, and what could scare her so?

Perhaps anything, if she was alone without the people she trusted. She could not see, and that was my fault.

If it weren’t for me, Adorjan would never get lost.

Guilt swirled inside my chest until I could barely keep up with the conversation. And then, I heard my name.

“What about you, Kirian?” Misha’s Genya looked at me. When he blinked, his dark lashes fanned across his cheek. He had a strange way of not glaring too pointedly at anyone, save his Misha. He would avert his eyes, then glance back and smile alluringly, inviting everyone into his confidence.

It felt so much like a honeyed trap, and I was glad he’d never set it for me.

Sometimes, he and Misha glared at each other, and though it frightened me, it seemed a game to them. Too soon after that heated glare, their arms would find their way around one another and the pair of them would disappear.

As the days dragged on, I’d grown terribly jealous of the ease of it. They did not question what they were to one another. They did not hold themselves apart.

Not like me and Kostya.

I could no longer tell if Kostya wanted to protect me, treating me with such a light hand, or if he meant to put distance between us.

“What do you think about where they’ve gone?” Genya asked again, gently pressing when I failed to respond.

I looked to Dasha, sitting at the table with her hands folded tightly in front of her. Her lips trembled, and her cheeks were splotchy from crying.

Then, I looked at Kostya.

It was impossible to imagine leaving him behind, if he were caught in such pain and fear. Adorjan would not have left Dasha without good reason.

With a rough swallow, I reached for Kostya beneath the table. My nerves only settled when he turned his hand over to squeeze mine.

That gave me the strength to talk to the rest of them. “If Kostya is sad, I will be with him. And . . . ” I glanced at Misha from across the table—his hard face and severe scowl. It wasn’t just Kostya that I owed allegiance to, though he came first in all things. “And if Maraht is hurt or in need, I will find him and be with him too. He is family, and if he is hurt, all my family hurts.” It would radiate outward, hurting Misha and all who cared about the both of them.

“Danik and Adorjan are with each other,” I whispered. I’d not had the luxury of being close to the other Vasiliev dragons in a very long time, but Dasha and Dima had been born together, on the very same day. Danik and Adorjan had slept beside them, little black and gold slips of dragons, all in the same crib. I would never forget Danik’s roar when I had hurt Adorjan.

I caught Dasha’s eye and, though I wished she could see me, I tried to speak with the same comforting surety. “Danik would never hurt Adorjan. Never.”

Her next exhale was shaky, but she nodded. Nikolai squeezed her shoulder.

And Misha, doubtful of Dima’s kindness as ever, scoffed.

Kostya scowled his way, and Misha glared right back. “What? We can’t know what Dmitri would do. He’s not in his right mind, and it follows that Danik isn’t either. If he’s gone—”

“Then we will find him,” Dasha said. “We’ll find them both, because if he is hurt, the whole family hurts, right?”

She smiled at me, her eyes shining with fresh tears.

I shrank into my shoulders.

Misha huffed, planting his hands on the table to push out of his seat. “Then we ought to talk to our king and find out where his dragon’s gone.”

“No.” Kostya was quiet, but he was still Misha’s big brother. It wasn’t often that he put his foot down, but when he did, he usually got his way. “Let’s see what Arkadii has to say instead of bothering Dima right away. We don’t want to make this worse than it already is.”

Chapter 37

Kostya

When Misha had said we should talk to Dmitri about the missing dragons, there had been a second of fear on Nikolai’s face. More telling, even Dasha had bitten her lip in worry.

Dasha, alone among us, had never truly felt the lash of her brother’s anger. His madness. But she had been worried about talking to him about Danik’s disappearance. Anything that could make Dasha worry about her brother’s reaction was beyond worrying for the rest of us.

Part of me wanted to drag Nikolai away and demand answers, but he’d been stuck to Dasha’s side all morning as though nailed to her, and I couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t going to let Kirian out of my sight until this was resolved, either.

If anyone, even Dima, wanted my dragon dead, he would have to kill me to see it through. While I doubted Dima would raise a hand to his sister on even his worst day, there was little reason for Nikolai to feel any better about him than I did.

That meant taking a circuitous route to get the information we wanted.

Arkadii Alexeyev.

He’d been Dima’s personal guard since we were all teenagers, assigned to try to curb some of Dima’s “wild” teenage behavior, according to his father. Truthfully, until King Alexei’s death, Dima’s behavior had been the least harmful of any member of the royal family, even including his sister.

That wasn’t to say Dasha had ever been difficult or wild, just that once, Dima had been . . . he’d been the very kindest person I had ever known. So sweet and happy, and bold enough in both that it had given me hope for the future I’d known no one would ever have under his father.

It had been little wonder King Alexei hadn’t liked it.

I hadn’t taken part in my father’s plot against the crown. Had a hard time imagining a circumstance where I’d be willing to murder my own uncle, however much I disliked the man.

We were Vasilievs, by the blood. We were meant to protect Voronezh, not play petty little power games that ended in each other’s deaths. It was about responsibility, not glory or fame. Duty, not power.

Arkadii was standing outside Dima’s suite, the most private one in the palace.

There, without question, was a man who understood duty.

He looked pale and tragic most days since King Alexei’s murder, but not once, not for a single moment, had he shirked his duties. He’d never fallen apart or disappeared to the southern coast to lick his wounds. He had stood vigil over Dima for ten long years, watching the man go mad.

He was not pleased to see me. “You don’t want to go in there,” he informed me when he saw me approaching the king’s door. The words weren’t hesitant or meek, but certain, leaving no room for question.

“I don’t,” I agreed, and that seemed to make him pause. “I wanted to see you for a moment.”

His jaw tightened, eyes going colder. “I have nothing to tell you about His Majesty’s private—”

“And I have nothing to ask you about His Majesty’s private business.” I paused only long enough for the words to sink in, for his guard to come down just a bit, before surging on. “I have come to ask about Danik.”

The flinch was well hidden, but unmistakable.

“You know he’s gone?” I asked.

His head whipped toward me, eyes round with shock, and that, finally, was a surprise. “Gone? He’s . . . no, my prince, I had no idea.” I glanced at the door behind him, but he was already shaking his head. “No, I’ve no doubt such news would be a shock to His Majesty as well. Danik is always in the stable when we go there.”

The way his eyes drifted to the floor as he finished speaking said what I needed to know. It wasn’t a lie. Arkadii wasn’t a liar. “He’s not well, Danik,” I prodded.

He shuddered. “He’s . . . unhappy. Like His Majesty.”

The mere idea was enough to make my blood run cold. For close to two decades, people had treated Kirian like he was a vicious beast as likely to burn a person to cinders as sit complacently in his cell. Apparently, Danik was more a danger than poor Kirian had ever been.

“Sad,” Kirian whispered. “Danik cries at night.”

If the previous conversation had made Arkadii flinch, he reacted to this like Kirian had landed a blow to the soft part of his belly. “I’m very sorry,” he whispered, glancing back at the door to the king’s suite behind him. “I wouldn’t know much about it. This door has been locked every night for ten years.”

There was something heavy in that.

Ten years. Not fifteen years, which was how long Arkadii had been guarding Dima, implying that at some point, Arkadii had been welcome inside my cousin’s bedchamber. Ten years. Since the king’s murder.

Still, Alexeyev had been well-chosen for his purpose. He drew himself back up from what had clearly been a blow to his heart, and met my eye. “I recommend not asking to see him, as I said when you arrived, Prince Konstantin. He’s not in a state for visitors. Even Princess Dasha didn’t seem to have much luck.”

Poor Dasha. Even in the misery of the last decade, she’d been able to count on that single ray of hope—that her brother still listened to her. Still loved and trusted her. If he was in such a rage that he wouldn’t even do that, what did it mean for the rest of us? For Voronezh in its entirety?

Kirian tugged hard at my sleeve suddenly, his own face filled with panic when I turned to look at him.

“What is it, love?”

He jerked back at the words, eyes going a bit wider for a moment, and something that looked like—like hope?—crossed his face, but then he shook it off. “Dasha cannot make him happy.” He lowered his head and his voice, meeting my gaze with intensity, as though willing me to understand. “So Adorjan cannot make Danik happy.”

Even with all the warning in his voice, it took me a moment. Just a moment, though. Adorjan had, perhaps, gone to bring Danik home. I had no idea how she might find him, or whether that might work under normal circumstances, but just now, Arkadii had told us Dima wasn’t even listening to his sister. So his dragon certainly wasn’t going to listen to hers. And while Dasha was here in the palace, where she was surrounded by people who could help her, keep her safe . . . Adorjan was decidedly not.

Adorjan was a blind dragon out in the wilds of Voronezh, trying to find another dragon, her favorite friend. A friend who, if Arkadii’s concern was any indication, might be entirely out of control, even to the point of attacking her when she found him. Fuck.

Chapter 38

Kirian

The guard outside the king’s chambers was a strange, morose man. Serious. Handsome. Tall. But he gave off the feeling of someone in mourning.

Only, when Maraht had mourned his sire, he’d bellowed his rage throughout the stables.

As Dima spiraled into madness, Danik would whine and pace and lash out. Sometimes, he’d be too quiet.

But Arkadii was different—sensible and focused, but heavy as stone.

The air in that part of the palace was poison. It tore through everyone there, radiating out from the king’s rooms.

I wanted no part of it. By the blood, it almost made me long for the dragon stables.

But the rooms Kostya shared with his family were not like that. They were, if sometimes quiet or sometimes tense, still full of life. Full of laughter and shared meals and on the occasion when true happiness was out of the question, at least there was discussion of the problems that faced them.

The King of Voronezh seemed determined to snuff all that out. We hadn’t even seen him, and his presence still hung over us like a toxic miasma.

That sense of foreboding almost made leaving the palace a pleasure, just to get a breath of fresh air somewhere that wasn’t poised right on the edge of disaster.

I had not yet figured out how to feel about the horses. The one Vladislava had led out was large and surprisingly soft, especially her lips when they brushed against my palm.

Still, even if she was no danger to my Kostya, even if horses were good and useful, Kostya wasn’t meant to ride one.

He was meant to ride me, and I could not help feeling that I had denied Kostya a great deal when I’d become human. Denied it to myself as well, as much joy as I had always found when Kostya was astride my back. And for what?

Now, we had promised to help Dasha, and when Arkadii had looked lost, I had—

I must have lost my mind, because I said that we would find Adorjan and Danik both. I’d promised, all too aware that Dima was somewhere behind that door, and he hated me.

If we could manage this, perhaps his anger would cool and I could make our place in Voronezh a little safer.

At the very least, we—I—owed it to Dasha and Adorjan. I could not stay safe in the palace knowing that Adorjan was not there.

So Misha took Maraht and flew north, and we went south from the palace on horseback. I still did not know how to ride, so I sat before Kostya with his arms around me.

This time, my shoulders were tense around my ears. Kostya might have been searching for a dragon the last time we’d ridden out of the palace, but I had known that I was right there with him. I’d been able to melt in his arms and appreciate the skill of his seat.

This time, I didn’t have the answers, and anxiety pricked its way up my spine, creeping higher with every step.

We rode out until the sun began to set, turning the whole sky a fiery red. I could feel Kostya’s dread, but it took me hours of staring at the sky, scanning back and forth, looking for a pillar of smoke on the horizon, to realize what we were both braced for.

We feared Danik would have lashed out at innocents with the same fury that Dima had brandished that knife. Only one man with a knife would never be as dangerous as a dragon.

But at least, if he had razed a village to the ground, we would have known where to look for him. The tragedy at Dobryanka had not been subtle.

Instead, we were stuck riding, hoping that we were going the right way with no real clue about it. Occasionally, Kostya would slow the horse and ask what I thought, and I did my best to guide him, considering the places I would want to hide if wounded or afraid, but I did not know if I had the right sense of things.

As a dragon, I’d have wanted to be somewhere high, closed off on all sides, easily defensible. I’d have wanted to find somewhere familiar, where I’d felt safe before. But Kostya and I had not flown with Dmitri and Danik, or with Dasha and Adorjan. Only with Misha and Maraht, and they were very far away.

The day stretched on, and we found no hint of Danik or Adorjan. The world was different way down on the ground, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen this part of Voronezh except from above.

It had begun to snow late that afternoon, and it stuck to the ground as we approached the mountain range, slowing our progress.

Near the path, there was an outcropping of stone, and it was the best shelter we could hope for that night. Already, it was too late to turn back to the palace, but neither one of us had ever suggested it. Impossible, that we’d abandon this task before it was done. It was too important, to find them and keep them safe.

If I were a dragon still, I could have carried Kostya straight up into the mountains. We could have been back already, tucked into a steaming bath.

Now, I was just glad that my Kostya was clever and had thought to pack supplies for us. I never would’ve considered it.

“We should make camp,” Kostya said, dismounting and pulling the reins near the stone face. “We won’t find them in the dark.”

The sun wasn’t down yet, but there was no guarantee we’d find anywhere better to sleep that night. At least here, the mountain blocked the worst of the wind.

That was a thing I could have done for Kostya, were I still large and formidable instead of small and pink and pitiful. I could have curled around him and kept us both warm, and the horse as well.

It wasn’t even that I was human—simply that I did not know what to do when we stopped moving. On the rare occasions that Kostya and I had stayed out, just the two of us, I’d been able to breathe fire. I could wrap myself in a coil around him and he could sleep against my side.

Now, I didn’t know how to light a fire, or whatever else we’d need. On top of not knowing how to swing a sword or ride a horse, I was failing to see the point of me. I’d taken so much for granted, when I was bigger.

Kostya directed me to gather wood, told me what kind we’d need. He’d brought enough food for a night, just in case, but I didn’t think either one of us had really considered how much harder it was to survive the wild when I was so damned useless.

Still, we managed to start a fire under that outcropping, find a place to tie up the horse out of the snow, and eat the dried meat the palace servants had thoughtfully packed—people with more sense than I had, to be certain.

We were sitting side by side on the bedroll, set up between the rock and the campfire, our arms pressed against each other. Kostya’s warmth was nice, but it wasn’t—well, I wanted more. I wanted to feel like I wasn’t so damned useless, like I still made him happy, even if things were less convenient.

When I felt him shiver, I wrapped my arm around him and pulled him under it, where it was warmest. I looked at him and smiled, because I wanted him to feel better.

He smiled back, but it was weak and my chest began to ache.

I stared too long at his lips, and he dropped his gaze and tucked his chin down, and a flush swept across his cheeks.

My heart sank. I’d made him nervous.

“Am I—” I stared, unsure what to say or how to voice the twisting guilt and fear that crept through me every second he avoided my eyes. “Did you—”

With a frustrated huff, I shook my head and glared into the red flames. I’d ruined everything. No longer was I what my Kostya needed, and what benefits we had found with my new form were not things he wanted.

“I kissed Kostya,” I whispered thickly, glaring into the flames. I kept my arm around him, holding him tight. Even if he did not want me as I wanted him, I would never let him go cold. “I kissed Kostya, and it was . . . more. We fly, but a kiss with Kostya is more. It is all joy. Yes?”

At the end, my voice cracked. I hated that sound; I didn’t want him to know that I was hurt. He would feel bad then, and he might kiss me even if he didn’t want to, because he was kind and he loved me.

I didn’t doubt that, only feared we did not love each other the same way, in concert, as we always had.

He was biting his lip when I glanced at him, and it took him too long to answer. My eyes began to sting and my heart felt like it was being squeezed by a fist.

I wanted to curl up and bury my face in my knees, but that would’ve meant pulling away from him, and that was impossible. So I let my head tip against his and turned into his soft white hair to hide there instead.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Kostya breathed after a while. “This is all new, and—and you need time to adjust.”

I jerked back, already shaking my head ardently.

“There is no time to need. There is no me and no you. There is Kostya and Kirian. There is us.” He had to understand. All that I was, was his own. “I have loved you.”

I meant the act, yes—moving inside his body, the feeling of his hands gripping me and our breaths mingled between sweet kisses—but I meant more than that too. I had loved him from the moment I’d lifted my scaled head and seen the tiny pink creature who was my soul, there outside my body.

The blood witch and the ceremony she’d performed had been painful and terrifying, even for a newly hatched dragon, but I would do it again. I would do it again a thousand times, till I died of blood loss, to have my Kostya.

I had loved him in pride and in fear. I would love him forever. When he died, there was no place left in this world for me. All was Kostya.

“I love you,” I insisted, staring into his eyes when he blinked at me.

Surely, that could not come as a surprise to him, but he only stared at me, and I could not even roar in anguish.

“Am I wrong?” I whispered, fear and doubt choking my voice. “Am I the . . . wrong Kirian?”

Kostya was blinking fast now, shaking his head. His hands cupped my face. “No. Of course not. You’re my Kirian. You are. In any shape, you are my Kirian.”

He surged forward then, dragging me toward him. His kiss was sharp and desperate, sucking on my bottom lip, pressing his way inside my mouth with his tongue like that was the best way to get me to stop worrying.

He was right, really. I couldn’t worry with his lips on mine and his arms around me. Surely, his heart would not race this way if he did not like me the way that I was now.

We kissed and kissed, and I pulled him closer, running my hands across his body.

By the blood, hands were a marvel. All the things I could touch—the feel of him beneath my fingers.

He went for the front of my trousers, and I sat back. He was much better with knots and buttons than I was, but I would learn.

I watched, awestricken, as he guided me out of the opening, his clever hand wrapped around my swollen cock. He caught my eye and held it as he leaned down, and the wet flash of his tongue darted out to taste my skin.

I groaned, sure that nothing had ever been better than the feeling of my Kostya with his mouth on me, all warm and slick and so, so perfect.

He licked, just a bit at a time, but them his lips closed over my head. He sucked and tongued and—and fuck.

“I want you,” I bit out.

He pulled back long enough to shake his head. “I don’t have oil.”

Damn it all, I didn’t care about that. I was a dragon, and he could fuck me however he liked. I could take it.

But he went right back to sucking my cock, and—and we could do that. So long as I felt his pleasure singing with my own, we could do that.

“Kostya—” I patted his shoulder until he withdrew. He made a protesting noise when I pulled back, turning around on the bedroll, until we faced opposite ways along its length. Fumbling as my fingers were, I managed to undo his trousers.

“What are you—” He started, but I growled and moved in, dragging my teeth with the lightest touch across his shaft.

He hissed and bucked, but my Kostya was the cleverest man in all of Voronezh, and by the time I laved my tongue across his silk skin, he had caught up.

He gripped my ass in both hands, wedging his wrist beneath my hip and jerking me toward him. His mouth was on me, open and accommodating, and he swallowed me down like I was all he needed in the world.

Not food. Not air. Just me.

I was not half so skilled as him with lips and tongue, but I tried to keep up, and his body undulated on the bedroll, chasing pleasure I could feel cresting for us both.

When I couldn’t stand it anymore, my body stiff and shaking against his, Kostya swallowed around me again. The flex of his throat—sweet merciful fuck, I spilled down his throat with a cry, both my hands on the base of his cock.

Senseless, I took him in my mouth again, and I felt his dick pulse between my lips, and bitter seed shot across my tongue.

I gagged, unable to control myself. And—and—oh, by the time I realized what I had done, I groaned in agony.

Panting, Kostya came in white streaks across my face. But only a moment before, he’d been in my mouth. I could have had him. Had every drop.

Breathily, he laughed. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you.”

I sat up on my hip to look down at him, sweaty and debauched and beautiful.

“Here—”

He reached up, as if to clean me, and I jerked back.

“No.” My tongue flicked out, and I tasted his seed on the corner of my mouth. I wiped it with the back of my wrist, and with open lips, I sucked it off my skin. My Kostya had come inside me, and I wanted it again. “I want to eat all of you,” I growled.

Kostya burst out laughing, so loud in the quiet snow.

I scowled at him. “Is that wrong?”

He shook his head, and his eyes were glittering. I had given him joy too, and I grinned fiercely.

“No,” he assured me, sitting up so that we were each half curled in each other’s laps, spent and tired and cozy all the same. “No. I don’t think many other people would say it like that, but I know what you mean, and it’s sweet.”

“So I can have more?” I glanced down between us, his softening cock between the folds of his trousers.

I could make it hard again. I knew I could, if he gave me the chance.

“Yes,” Kostya promised, leaning in to kiss me swiftly and tucking himself away at the same time. Annoyed, I huffed through my nose.

“But not tonight,” he said. “It’s cold. We’re tired. We’ve a long day ahead of us.” Before I could sulk too much, he kissed me again. “You, my dragon, can eat me later, if you like.”

I nodded. “But not tonight.”

So I tucked him into the bedroll to the sound of his quiet laughter, and I curled around him, tangling our legs together and leaning over him. Dragon or man, I would keep my Kostya warm and safe.

And later, I would eat him again and again.

Chapter 39

Kostya

Idreamed of Kirian.

Not a dragon again, but not exactly as he was, either. I dreamed of him dressed in Voronezh’s finest silks, strong and smiling and so very sure of himself, dancing at a ball.

Our wedding ball.

It was ridiculous. Even if Dima wished me to marry a man so that the succession wouldn’t be muddied, he wouldn’t approve of me marrying Kirian. Would anyone? He was a dragon, and while they were every bit as clever as humans, and Kirian the cleverest of all, wouldn’t the people take issue? If not with his draconic nature, then with the fact that he was Kirian, the so-terrifying monster.

Except that . . . I had no idea how anyone could look at him in this human skin, as he smiled so sweet and shy, his expressions hopeful and longing in a way only the least empathetic human could possibly miss, and not realize he’d never been a monster at all. That he was everything I’d always insisted—kind and nervous and wonderful like most humans didn’t even want to be. Never tried.

Kirian had always been my everything, and somehow, this had made him even more—a feat I’d have never imagined possible.

I woke curled against his warmth, hotter than any other human I’d slept near, and refused to get up before dawn started to break the horizon. Being able to hold him against me through the night was more than I’d imagined to begin with, so I was going to take advantage of every moment I could.

It wasn’t as though I would be allowed to keep this, in the end. He would have to go back to being a dragon, or Dima would force me to marry some child as he had Misha.

Yes, fine, Genya was an adult, and nineteen wasn’t a child, but who knew what Dima would do to me? What kind of person he’d marry me to? He’d always disliked me more than Misha, since the accident, and he might marry me off to someone as awful as that rat of a man, Zakhar.

Or maybe . . . maybe Kirian and I would run away. We could live in some southern kingdom where the air was always warm and sticky, eat tropical fruit and sleep together every night forever.

Having Kirian with me was worth anything, maybe even giving up everything I had in the world, including Voronezh itself.

Kirian was quiet when he woke, and he kept glancing at me from under his long gold lashes, eyes worried as though concerned I might have changed my mind about things in the middle of the night. About us.

I’d hurt him enough. Not only in the last week, but in our lifetimes, allowing others to bully and torment him because I didn’t know how to stop it.

That was over now.

So once the horse was packed back up with our things, I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him tight against me. Then, I kissed his forehead. His eyelids, one by one. His cheeks. And finally, his lips.

“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.” When he opened his mouth, no doubt to deny my fault in the matter, I pressed a finger to his lips. “No, you don’t need to tell me I’m blameless. I’m sorry. I should have known you anywhere. From now on, I will. I’ll look for you in every leaf and every gust of wind. I will never mistake you again. You are my everything, Kirian. I love you.”

The way his lower lip wobbled at the sentiment, he understood that I really meant it. How deeply I meant it.

I leaned in to kiss him again, and when I stood there after, just leaning my forehead against his, he gave a sniffle before speaking once more in his unique way. “Kostya and Kirian love.”

I didn’t have to know him as well as I did to understand what he meant. He loved me too. We’d been each other’s entire lives for so long, I doubted either of us was capable of loving another the way we loved each other.

With that said, and no more painful silence between us, I helped him up onto the horse, and started our long trek up the mountain path. I hadn’t said so, but I knew right where I was leading us.

When we were teenagers, as much as Dima had never forgiven me for the incident with Adorjan, we’d been alike in many ways. We’d both wanted to escape the palace and our responsibilities as princes of the realm as often as possible. More than once when I was out flying with Kirian, I remembered seeing him in the mountains.

He and Arkadii had always favored a beautiful flower-strewn meadow on one of the lower terraces on the southern mountainside. It was surrounded on all sides and difficult to reach except from above, but they had taken Danik and Arkadii’s griffin and spent long afternoons hiding out. I had avoided ever landing there with Kirian, not wanting to disturb what little peace my cousin and his lover could eke out.

I didn’t know if Danik would have gone there, but . . . well, if I’d been him, I would have. It was probably one of the last happy memories he had left, and if I were him, I’d be clinging to it with every claw I had.

So we headed up the mountainside straight toward that clearing, me clinging to the idea that I wasn’t entirely wrong about Danik. Hoping against hope that my cousin’s soul wasn’t so far gone that he was off burning villages instead of staying in the place where he’d once been happy.

We hadn’t even gotten all the way to the clearing when I was proven both right and too optimistic, as the anguished roar of a dragon cut the air. Our horse reared up at the noise, and it was all I could do to grab Kirian and pull him against myself to cushion his body from the fall as the horse shook us loose and went bolting back down the mountain the way we’d come.

We fell into a snowdrift, which helped cushion us, but still, my body jolted with the shock of hitting the ground. Thankfully there was no telltale snap of anything breaking, and I was too distracted by the current threat, my blood up for a fight, to worry about the pain that would come of such a fall later.

Damned horse saddles, without proper straps to hold the rider in place. I would never get used to them.

Kirian, unlike the horse, and so unlike himself as a child, didn’t jolt or scare when we hit the snowdrift. No, while I was still trying to catch my breath from the force of our hard landing, he pushed up off the ground and ran toward, not away from, the direction the roar had come from.

I was panting when I followed after him, but I couldn’t let him face an angry dragon without me. Even if he was going to die today, he wasn’t damned well doing it without me. He was never doing anything without me again.

I streaked into the clearing on his heels, and there they both were. Adorjan, a slim gold dragon, looking delicate and more than a little nervous, but just as determined. Danik, looking wild and cornered and angry. His eyes narrowed when they lit on Kirian, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

A strange sound burst from Kirian, and it took me a moment to recognize it as a sound he might have made in his dragon form. An irritated one. Danik hunched into his shoulders, as though chastised, and let out an equally annoyed huff. Adorjan whined, soft and low, coaxing, as she leaned toward them both.

Somehow, they both seemed to recognize Kirian, despite his form. I tried not to feel guilty at that.

It appeared that perhaps everything would be okay for a moment, despite Danik’s anger. He seemed to understand that he was being unreasonable, and it sparked hope in me that Dima did as well.

Then a breeze blew through the clearing, and last year’s desiccated flowers were caught up in it, pelted against us all like tiny sling rocks. It was nothing, hardly even something I’d have noticed most days.

Danik, though . . .

Danik reacted as though he’d had literal shit thrown on his face, and roared in fury. A second later, a gout of flame was searing through the air, burning the flowers out of existence.

It would have been fine, if a massive overreaction, if Kirian and Adorjan hadn’t been right in front of him. Sweet, soft, human Kirian, with no defense against dragon fire. And innocent Adorjan, whose life had already been rewritten by dragon fire once.

Kirian turned and lunged toward Adorjan, somehow managing to shove her back even in his much smaller human form, and while the scent of burned hair followed, there was no scream. No stink of roasting meat as my love and Adorjan were killed. They both fell back, out of the range of Danik’s fire.

I couldn’t have said if that was what set him off, if it was still the flowers, or maybe if I’d just been too optimistic in the beginning, but Danik was lost after that. He roared again and lunged forward, snarling like a beast caught in a trap, snapping his teeth at them. The sound of fire bubbling in his chest was unmistakable, and it was seconds before he launched another deadly attack, this one intentional rather than incidental.

This, then, was my moment. Kirian had already saved the day, but of the four of us, only one was a dragon rider. I didn’t usually make do without a saddle at all, but I could, and since all of our lives depended on it, I damned well would.

It helped that Adorjan was smaller, slenderer than Kirian had ever been, so I could easily fit my legs about her neck without the aid of a saddle. I rushed toward them, leaping for Adorjan’s neck and hitting the target dead on.

“It’s Konstantin, Adorjan,” I said, in the calmest voice I could manage, while grabbing Kirian by the hand and swinging him up in front of me. “I’m sorry, I know I’m not Dasha, and I know you came to help Danik, but we need to go home right now. Dasha is worried about you. She needs you.”

She was a dragon, and not easily frightened. She had come to help Danik, and even as he snarled and lunged at us, she remained determined to do that. But she and Dasha were one. While the princess’s fear could be a distant thing in her head this far from the palace, hearing someone say aloud that she was needed was another matter entirely.

Without hesitation, she leapt into the air and took wing. She let me lead her around in a wide arc until she was heading in the right direction for the palace, and frankly, I marveled that she’d managed to find her way to the clearing on her own. I’d known that she and Dasha weren’t as constrained by the blindness as many people thought, but it seemed that even I had underestimated them.

Because it had fed into my self-hatred, I realized in a moment of clarity.

Every now and then Zoya pointed out that the only thing I loved more than Kirian was hating myself. I’d always hissed like a scalded cat at the very notion, but . . . as usual, she’d been right. I’d underestimated Adorjan and Dasha because it helped me heap more hate on myself to think that my mistake had cost them more.

In front of me, Kirian was grinning. He turned to look at me. “Help,” he whispered, his words snatched up by the wind so I felt them almost more than heard then. “Kirian helps Adorjan.”

I squeezed my free arm tight around him again. “Saved, Kirian. You saved her. You’re a hero.”

And while Kirian had always been my hero, my savior, it was perhaps a new feeling for him, having the chance to save someone else. Being trusted enough that they allowed him close, and having the opportunity to prove himself.

I’d done us both an injustice by trying to keep him away from trouble all these years, because Kirian fucking shone like the north star when he was in danger. He was no longer small and scared; not any more than I was still the lost, lonely boy I’d once been. He could save the whole world and then some. And maybe in the future, I would let him try instead of insisting that we’d be better off while only I could protect him.

Chapter 40

Kirian

Flying was better in every way than riding a damned horse. Yes, it was my first time doing it like this—being a rider instead of a mount.

As Adorjan beat her enormous golden wings, I feared Danik would see us and give chase, like any predator after his prey. But he stayed on the ground, snarling, gouts of flame melting any snow, drying any plants, and then setting the meadow ablaze. The dusty husks that’d once been blooms were more his enemy than we’d ever been.

Not even when I’d been afraid, spouting the flames that’d blinded Adorjan and Dasha, had I seen such fury in Danik’s eyes. He’d been angry then, snarling and barreling toward me with claws outstretched. Dasha had screamed and Adorjan had snarled and Danik—

Danik had been in full control of himself. Teeth bared, he had held me down with a paw on my chest and waited.

Waited for Dima to direct him, maybe, but when Maraht had intervened instead, he’d not lost his mind or taken to attacking anyone around him. He’d gone back to see to Adorjan. He’d wanted to see that the others were all right.

Now, it was like he couldn’t think at all.

Me? I was stuck thinking.

I had helped Adorjan, and we had found her. I’d never been happier with myself than when I realized that we had kept my promise to Dasha and to Arkadii. Perhaps we had not brought Danik home, but we had found them both, and Adorjan was safe.

Danik . . . I did not know how to make him safe.

But all the while, it wasn’t lost on me that I’d had no way to protect myself—to protect Kostya or Adorjan—from Danik.

I could not help us escape.

And I could not fly.

Rather than traveling days across frigid, winding paths, it was scarcely more than an hour before we’d made it home and Adorjan began to dive.

I held on to Kostya, tight as I could while the ground rushed up to meet us. Yes, I’d done this myself, hundreds of times. But that was Kostya and me and I knew we were safe. He knew we were safe.

This time, I had to bite back a scream. Adorjan was—was as used to carrying a rider as I had been, I realized. She knew what to do. The fear was all my own.

We landed outside the dragon stables, Adorjan making the quiet, short sound that helped her find her footing and judge the distance, and Dasha was there waiting for us. Her guard was at her side, a wolf sat beside him, both looking on seriously as she rushed forward with her arms thrown up.

“Adorjan!”

The dragon sniffed, and as we slid off her back, she bent forward to press her snout into Dasha’s waiting hands. With a smile on her face, Dasha closed her eyes and tipped forward to set her forehead against Adorjan’s golden scales.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she whispered.

It felt like something I wasn’t supposed to see, so I shrank back and turned toward Kostya.

That was as far as I made it before the relief of the moment faded.

“Danik?” Dasha asked, turning toward Kostya and me both.

When I flinched, Kostya’s hand settled on the small of my back and he answered. “He’s in the meadow in the southern mountains—the one Dima favored. He doesn’t seem inclined to leave it.”

If we all left him alone, perhaps Danik would be safe there. I wanted to think it was possible, but I couldn’t help the dread that bubbled up. Yes, he wasn’t threatening the palace or any villages, but if he was out there alone, that could change at any time, and we wouldn’t know until it was too late.

While I was on two legs, there wasn’t even a single thing that my Kostya could do to stop him. No man could fight a dragon.

Many had tried, and many had died.

“We have to find a way to help him,” Dasha whispered.

But all of us, and Nikolai too, stood there silently. No one knew how to do that. We’d have to help the king to help Danik, and if even Dasha couldn’t manage to get through to him, what chance did anyone else have?

“We’ll find a way,” Kostya promised.

With Adorjan safely home, the two of us left her with Dasha and Nikolai and went inside. However nice it’d been to stay with Kostya and know, for the first time, that I was precisely the right me in precisely the right place, I knew now that it couldn’t last forever. I could hold onto this sweetness with Kostya for a while, and it had been an incomprehensible gift to be able to touch him and stare into his eyes and put words to all of my feelings for him.

But he needed more from me. He always had.

“Your clothes were singed,” he muttered when we got back to his room.

Quietly, he helped me out of my ruined coat, and it was nice, the feeling of his fingers against me as he removed my kaftan on the nape of my neck.

He cleaned me up, not bothering to call a maid or for a proper bath, but heating up water himself and using a soft cloth to wipe away the soot on my cheek and neck.

“Your hair got burnt,” he whispered. “I can fix it.”

That wasn’t surprising. Kostya could fix all things in the world, if anyone could.

He led me over to a vanity, a shining glass set before it. He had shears and a brush. Each time the bristles ran through my hair, Kostya carefully untangled another knot.

He was endlessly patient, and only once it all hung straight and silky as his own did he trim off the burnt ends while I watched him in the looking glass.

“Do you like it this long? I could cut it shorter.” He bunched the hair up around my ears to give me an idea of what it’d look like. But my own hair was of no interest to me. I looked at him, standing behind me, and admired his resplendent white mane.

“Kostya’s hair is beautiful. Like Kostya’s.”

He nodded and only trimmed the very ends. When he was finished, he put his hands on my shoulders and we stayed there in silence for a few breaths.

We were tired, relieved, and—I hoped—we finally understood each other in the right way. He did not think he was pressing me for too much, and I did not doubt that he wanted me in this form and in any other.

“Kostya?”

He hummed, twisting my hair around his first two fingers. The way he did it tugged slightly, just enough to send a pleasant tingle rushing up from the nape of my neck.

“Love me?”

Confused, he scowled in the glass. “I do, Kirian. Always.”

I shook my head and twisted around on the stool to face him. “No. In all the ways. I want to feel all the ways.”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I huffed through my nose. “Inside. You liked it, yes?”

He had. I’d felt his pleasure through our bond, the satisfaction that had settled over him when he’d surrendered to me.

I felt when understanding dawned on him, and my nervousness uncoiled when his smile softened. “I did.”

Just once, I wanted him to hold me like that so I could know everything was fine and that he was there to care for me. If I would never be small enough for his bed or his life again, just . . . once, I wanted the whole of him.

And then . . . then I would be what he needed with no regrets. I would go to Zoya for her help and ask her to make of me what Voronezh needed most.

I would always be Kostya’s Kirian, but I had to keep him safe. We were meant to fly.

How could I deny him that forever, just so I could keep holding his hand?

“Please,” I whispered, edging toward him on my little stool. “Show me.”

Chapter 41

Kostya

There was nothing in the world quite like looking into Kirian’s eyes. They were deep and intense, and always shadowed by sadness.

That was my biggest failing in a life filled with failure: his sadness. Mitigating that sadness had always been my most important goal, but I’d been going about it wrong.

Kirian didn’t need me to remind people again and again that he wasn’t the monster they thought. That did him no good at all, mostly because they never listened to me.

What Kirian needed was me.

More than once, my siblings had suggested that I take him and go away, leave Dima and his orders and all Voronezh and their fear behind us. I’d never been able to make myself do it, because I loved my country. My people. The land. Everything, down to the damned cows.

What I had never allowed myself to know before—my deepest, darkest secret—was what wouldn’t leave me alone now.

I loved Kirian more.

Maybe that was selfish—no, it was certainly selfish, since he was my very soul, and it meant I loved myself more than Voronezh, but knowing that didn’t change anything. Kirian was my world, and nothing would come before him.

Never again.

And there he was, asking me to make love to him. No part of me wanted to say no, so for once in my life, I decided to ignore honor and duty and every other thing that I’d been trained to think of first, and do precisely what I wanted to.

So I took him by the hand and led him over to my bed. Then I stripped him out of his clothes, one piece at a time. They were singed beyond further use, so I’d have to dress him in something else in the morning.

Maybe I’d dress him in my own clothes in the morning. We were close to the same height, so I didn’t doubt they would fit. Everything that was mine was already his, so he might as well take possession of it all.

Already, my mind was sorting objects. Clothing to take with us when we left Voronezh forever. Books I wanted with me. Items I would miss, but that were simply too unwieldy to take with us.

But no. Tonight I needed to give Kirian all my attention. He’d been denied that for too damned long, and I wasn’t going to do it a moment longer. Instead I slid the singed shirt from his shoulders and tossed it carelessly to the floor, running my fingers over his silken skin as I did. He was golden everywhere, almost sun-browned, and I wanted nothing more than to inspect every inch of that skin.

So I loosed his trousers and let them fall away as well, tugging him to the bed and laying him there in the middle of my deep blue velvet duvet, where he glowed like a shooting star in the night sky.

His eyes sparkled with interest as I took the bottle of oil in hand and coated my fingers, as though he was determined to memorize every motion I made.

Silly dragon. He was going to have to get used to this, because once we were away from Voronezh, I was going to have rather a lot of attention to give him. No more distractions of king and country. No more random lords thinking they were entitled to my time and concern.

I threw my own clothes off hastily, though they hadn’t been destroyed in the altercation with . . . well, the altercation between Danik and the field, really. He’d been angrier at the wind than us.

Still, those things didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to Kirian, with nothing to hold us apart. Not even a scrap of silk to come between us.

I spread his legs and slipped between them, careful not to jar him or pull at what had to already be sore muscles from the ride. I traced a fingertip beneath the scar on his side. “Better?”

He smiled softly, pleased even that I was fretting over him, like he didn’t deserve every bit of care and consideration the world had to offer.

“Better,” he whispered.

He was healing well, surely, and hadn’t complained about a full day on horseback, but it eased my worry to hear that he wasn’t hurting.

First, I reached to give his magnificent cock a stroke with my oil-slick hands. He sucked in a breath at the sensation but shook his head. “No, Kostya. Kostya inside.”

“I know, love. And we’ll get there.” Leaning down to kiss across his cheek, then the bridge of his nose, then the other cheek, I took my time and drew every sensation out. “We’ve got all night.”

“Tonight,” he agreed, with one of his too-sad smiles.

It was the only thing I would ever take away from Kirian again—that sadness that permeated everything we’d ever done, every moment we’d had together.

As gently as possible, I ran my oiled hand down his cock once more, over his balls, all the way down to his ass. I nudged a finger into the furled ring of muscle, not pushing or forcing, not wanting him to feel another moment’s discomfort, not ever.

Instead, I spent long moments and plenty of oil working him open, sliding in first one finger, then two, three, and even the pinkie, not wanting him to feel the burn of a premature thrust. Maybe someday he’d want to try anything and everything, but right now, he was only to have good sensations.

Long moments later, when he was panting and pressing down into my hand, his hole slick and ready for me, I withdrew my fingers.

Gratifyingly, he whimpered, insisting, “No, in!”

I grinned down at him and reached up to oil my own cock, standing at full attention. “In,” I agreed as I finished, settling into position, pressing the head of my dick against his entrance.

He pushed up, shoving his lips against mine, and my hands instantly went to cradle his head, holding him against me as I pressed inside him for the first time. His heat was even more pronounced against the sensitive skin of my cock, almost scorching in its intensity as I slid inside him.

It was perfect. He was perfect.

My breath caught as I pressed in, and when I was sheathed fully in his body, it whooshed out of me with only a slight hitch, mingling with his own. His eyes were closed, mouth open, pure bliss painted across his features, and that, always that, was what I wanted. Kirian’s pleasure. His joy.

Slowly, I began to move inside him, and his eyes shot open, almost surprised as he gasped his pleasure. “Kostya. My Kostya.” The words were whispered, but there was no doubt in them. No question.

“Yours,” I agreed. “Always your Kostya, completely.”

We shifted together then, his legs coming up and wrapping around me on sheer instinct, pressing us closer as I moved inside him, sliding in and only retreating as far as I had to before pushing in again, wanting only to be closer to him, never farther away.

We spiraled up and up that way, together, blue eyes staring into deep grassy green ones, our silence speaking for us as words never could.

The wave crested inside me at the same time as his own climax washed over his face, ecstasy and wonder and happiness overwhelming the whole of the bond, pushing away all the sadness and fear we lived steeped in. There was only Kirian and me, just for now, just for tonight. We were all that mattered.

We lay panting against each other in silence for a long time, Kirian leaning his head against my shoulder, before he leaned up to brush his lips against my cheek as I’d done to him and whisper, “Again.”

I couldn’t hold back my breathy laugh at that, but I also didn’t say no.

Chapter 42

Kirian

Ididn’t sleep that night. Instead, as Kostya’s body went lax beside mine, as we drifted peacefully beneath blue velvet, I sank down into his pillow and watched him sleep.

He was so beautiful like this, luminous and silver as the moon. His lashes fanned across his cheek like dewdrops.

I wanted to memorize every line of his face, the precise way each strand of hair cascaded around his sharp jaw.

This would not be the last time I saw him—no, we belonged to each other for as long as we lived—but if this was the last time I could lay beside him, our body warmth shared beneath the softest blanket, I would absorb every moment.

As the sun began to rise beyond the mountains, time had run out.

I leaned in, unable to help myself, and kissed his forehead one more time. He hummed in his sleep, the sound so sweet.

And I could put this off. For days. Maybe weeks.

But my chest ached at the thought, how much harder this would get with every passing day. I’d trick myself into thinking that I was really enough, that he didn’t have to compromise for me to stay like this.

I couldn’t stand the waiting. Silently, I slipped out of bed and put on one of the dressing gowns hanging in the bureau.

No one in the suite was awake—at least, that’s what I thought before I knocked on Zoya’s door and heard a firm, “Come in.”

Her rooms were strange. She had a bedroom, but it was empty.

“I’m in the laboratory.”

The sound of her voice sent me into a dark, discreet corridor set apart from the main areas by a small stairwell. It led the way into an open space, carved of stone, with only thin windows to shed light.

I was surprised to find her up. I thought she was still recovering from the magic she’d worked on me, but even this early, she seemed spry enough when she fell to the ground with a shout and came up gripping a rat by its tail. “Tricky bastard.”

The creature squealed as she carried it over to a cage and locked it inside.

Only once it was away did she look at me, frowning.

“Can I help you, Kirian?”

Startled, I blinked between the squealing, trapped rat and Zoya. “Are you . . . well?”

Zoya’s lips twitched in a haughty smirk that reminded me so much of Misha when he was up to something.

“I . . . figured I could take the break in people’s demands on my time to sort out a few things, but yes, I’m feeling much better.” She crossed her arms, looking me over with a scowl. “What about you? How do you feel?”

She didn’t ask like she was interested in hearing my tales of woe, but more like a healer wanting to know what was wrong. Or an alchemist at an experiment.

“Kostya needs a dragon,” I said.

Zoya scoffed, her dark eyes rolling dramatically. “Every Vasiliev in Voronezh has a fucking dragon. We’ve got plenty.”

“Not you.”

Zoya glared at me then, her lips pursing in annoyance. “Strange then, how I have access to any dragon I want, isn’t it?”

“Not the same.” She wasn’t bonded to any creature. She could never know what it was to have half yourself out there, walking around on their own.

“Now, Kirian, I know you’re not implying that I lack for anything.”

Zoya was in a dressing gown, her hair pulled into a loose braid tossed over her shoulder. She didn’t look much like a princess or a witch right then, and still, the sharpness in her smile sent an icy chill through my veins.

I shook my head.

But I wasn’t being unreasonable. Kostya would be the only Vasiliev but his sister with no dragon. He’d be vulnerable. Held apart.

At least Zoya had magic at her disposal.

I had to do better. “To protect him.”

She shook back her braid, tipping her chin up. “First, my brother is quite capable of protecting himself. Second, you’re in Voronezh. Pick up a weapon and learn to wield it like the rest of us.”

“To fly,” I hissed.

“He doesn’t need you for that any more than I do.”

But that wasn’t true. When we’d gone to find Danik, Misha had taken off on Maraht and—and I’d not been able to carry Kostya.

“There are others. People of two legs. He can have them.” Any of them would be so, so lucky just to spend a night with him. “There is only one dragon for Kostya. Only me.”

With a huff, Zoya crossed her arms. She leaned back against her worktable.

My anguish must have stirred something in her, because a line puckered her brow and she shook her head. “You don’t understand yet.”

I didn’t, and I was beginning to think I would never catch up with these people’s quick ways of thinking and their stubbornness.

“If Kostya wanted someone, he would have them. If that could make him happy, he would be happy. But there is only one creature in all of Voronezh who can love my brother as fiercely as he hates himself, and that is you.” She tipped her head to the side, considering me for a moment. “I even think he could do the same for you, and I’ve never met two people who need it more.”

Suddenly, she spun away from me, turning toward a beaker filled with something dark and ominous. She poured it into a small dish in the rat’s cage. It looked about as appetizing as sludge shoveled out of a sick dragon’s stall. Even the rat shrank back from it.

“All that he needs, you already have, and even if I could turn you back, I wouldn’t. At some point, you boys need to figure these things out for yourselves.”

Before I could figure out how to respond to that, much less anything else, I heard something. A soft sound, just beyond the bend in the corridor, like a gasp. Maybe a sob.

“Is that what you want?” Kostya asked, stepping out of the shadows. “You want to go back to how things were before?”

I gaped at him, unsure what to say.

His face was stricken. I’d been so clever, thinking I could slip out of bed before he woke and go behind his back, but in the process, I’d hurt him again.

No, I wished to say. I wanted to keep him. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to spend every day, every minute, every breath, right there at his side.

But surely that was selfishness. I was denying Kostya the breadth of what his birthright had promised him.

I was small and soft and plain. Even for a man, I could not say things well, I could not fight or wield a sword. I was not wealthy or wise.

All I had to offer him was love, and he’d have that from me in skin or in scales.

While my mouth moved soundlessly, Zoya cursed. “Fucking blood, get out! Get out and talk or fuck or whatever it is you need to do to sort yourselves out. This? This is why I prefer women. You lot are too fucking emotional. This nonsense comes from the balls, I’m sure of it.”

She stormed around her worktable and pushed the heel of her hand into my back, sending me staggering toward Kostya, who caught me without a second’s hesitation, even with pain twisting his beautiful face.

As Zoya stomped back to her experiments, muttering to herself about how she intended to prove the negative mental effects of testicle possession, I stared up at Kostya, gripping his arms.

His hair was loose, hanging so beautifully around his shoulders. The robe he wore was such a rich blue that it made his eyes shine like sapphires.

“I want you,” I whispered thickly. “I want all things for you.”

Chapter 43

Kostya

To say that I didn’t understand would be like saying there were a few things in the world I didn’t know. Kirian loved me. I was sure of it. I could feel that shining through the bond every moment, hear it in every word he said, feel it in his touch.

But I’d been planning to upend my entire life to run away with him, and he’d been planning on sending things back the way they were before. When we were both alone every night, him locked into the dragon stable in the dark, and me . . . well, I supposed I didn’t have to be alone every night, but—

Without Kirian, I was alone. Always had been.

I tugged him back across the floor, through our suite, ignoring the sitting room, and the chairs in my own bedroom, tugging him all the way back to my bed and into it with me. When we lay on our sides next to each other, looking into each other’s eyes, only then could I even begin to calm. To breathe once more.

How could he not understand that I needed him to survive?

No, I supposed that wasn’t it. Oh, I did need him, but it wasn’t that he didn’t know it. It was that he thought I needed him to be a dragon. I needed him in scales and wings.

I had loved him then, like that. I would love him if he’d been the creepy rat in Zoya’s cage. It never mattered what form he took; I loved, and would always love Kirian.

I did love to fly, but as much of that was being with him as the act of flying itself. Soaring through the air with my best friend. It wasn’t the same with Adorjan because we’d been worried and leaving Danik behind, too busy destroying dead flowers to even take note of us.

“I don’t care about flying,” I told him, looking into his eyes and trying to make him see that I was in earnest. “I care about you. As long as you’re with me, nothing else matters. Nothing. Please don’t—don’t do anything that might mean you leave me.”

He shook his head wildly, eyes wide and shocked. “Never. Kirian never leaves.”

Some people could survive their soul bonded creature dying or disappearing. I would not be one of those. There was no way I could live without Kirian. I wouldn’t even want to try.

Kirian looked dubious, like the thought of me not flying was one of the worst things he could imagine in the whole world, and I couldn’t deny that it was sad to me as well. I’d always felt bad for the people who would never know what it was like to fly over Voronezh, surveying the whole of the kingdom from above, the farmers and townsfolk like tiny hard-working ants going about their business so far below.

But I’d experienced it, and I knew that he was more important than that. Loving him was more important than anything else in the whole world to me.

But how could I say that? It might overwhelm and frighten him. Damn my Vasiliev blood, the ridiculous amount of passion and turmoil inherent in almost all of us. Was that why we were able to bond to the land, because we were all excessively emotional, as Zoya had yelled? It might explain her own cold calm in the face of our melodramas.

So I grabbed him and pulled him against me, simply holding him there for a long time. “We can make it through anything together,” I finally whispered. “I can do anything as long as you’re with me. Dragon or human.” I paused, biting my lip, wondering if even that was too much, too emotional, too pitifully clingy. But Kirian knew every part of me. He had to know how I felt about him. “I—I do particularly like the human form, though. You’re beautiful in any form, but this one is nice.”

Nice. What a pale, pitiful imitation of a word, compared to the truth. He was stunning. Radiant. He seemed to emanate a warm golden glow from within.

He was everything, and somehow, he didn’t know it.

There was a knock on the door, and it instantly banged open while the vibration of the movement was still reverberating through the wood. “Sorry to interrupt,” Misha said, voice containing a growl that said he was annoyed, not sorry. “Apparently Dasha needs our help. Again. With . . . planning.”

Planning?

What the hell did that even mean?

Nonetheless, we dragged ourselves out of bed, and I dressed Kirian in some of my finest silks and a warm velvet kaftan—ones I’d had made while thinking of his beautiful green scales, so it seemed appropriate to cover him in the same shade of forest green as his own beautiful shimmering other form.

When I went to pick a random piece of clothing for myself, he reached out, quick as a striking viper ahead of me, and grabbed a deep blue piece, pulling it in front of us. Nearly a match to his own, but in Vasiliev blue. I smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and pulled it out of the closet. Then I let him watch me dress, a tiny smile on his face.

It wasn’t all fixed, but it was better than him sneaking off and tearfully asking Zoya to change him back.

We would have to address it sooner or later. If he wanted to go back, truly wanted that, I wouldn’t stop him. It didn’t matter if I wanted him by my side. It didn’t matter that Zoya had said she didn’t know how. Surely she hadn’t known how to turn a dragon into a man, once. We would find a way to give him what he wanted, whatever that might be.

Dasha was calm when we went into the common room, sitting in an added chair with Nikolai behind her, eating a pastry and smiling in Genya’s direction like he’d just said something clever. He probably had; he was one of the cleverest people in Voronezh.

“Yes, we should definitely do that,” she said agreeably, then turned toward me. “Good morning, Kostya. I’m terribly sorry for imposing, but I was so worried about Adorjan and Danik”—her cheeks flushed bright pink—“I forgot to plan the planting festival, and now it’s so late that I . . . I needed help.”

And what kind of stone-hearted monster could possibly say no to a request like that?

Chapter 44

Kirian

The planting festival. I’d forgotten about it completely.

I hadn’t gone since I was a hatchling, since the king had been Dima’s father. It’d been a joyful time, when peasants put seeds in the ground and the Vasilievs’ bond to the land had made the soil fertile and the weather mild, encouraging crops to grow.

I remembered now, for the first time, how flowers had practically bloomed in Prince Dmitri’s footsteps.

Kostya and I, though we had hung back from the others, had still eaten sweet breads fried delicate and golden, and the last apples of the previous season baked honeyed and soft.

Just like I’d fed that horse in the stable yard, Kostya had fed me from his hand. It’d been the best day.

A thrill overcame me at realizing I would get to go again. No one would even look at me strangely. No one would realize it was me there at all.

Well, a few people, but save for Dima, the rest of Kostya’s family seemed to accept me. The rest of Voronezh was still in the dark.

Stranger still, Kostya said that he did not care about flying. He loved me. He even liked this form I had taken—the one that allowed me to be with him always—particularly well. The way he said it made me think that if he’d gotten to choose, he might’ve kept me as I was.

It was too much to hope for, that this was his preference and that there truly was something I could give him on two legs that no one else ever could. Still, it seemed so absurd that no other person in all of Voronezh could love Kostya like he deserved. Zoya had said as much, but I could barely believe it.

Who could look at him, meet his sparkling blue eyes and see his faint, subdued smile, and want anything more than to hold him close and make him feel warm and cared for and beautiful?

But this—him saying those things on a day when I realized I could attend the planting festival—was too much to try and talk myself into changing back despite his words. Zoya had said no anyway, so I might as well enjoy the time with my Kostya.

I could not help much with planning. I didn’t have ideas or know how these things usually went off. I hardly even knew what pleased people, beyond Kostya, and only that because I could feel his happiness in my own chest.

But I was a dragon shrunk down to the size of a man. I was strong enough to move things, to set up tents and to climb the maypole and anything else Dasha or the others thought they might need.

We had a few days to plan the festival, and those days were filled with hard labor and many exhausted, satisfied smiles.

Perhaps that was what I’d needed all along—hard work among family to sort out all the twisting thoughts that’d felt too big to hold.

Of course, it wasn’t just the Vasilievs working to make sure everything was arranged well. Dasha directed us, and everyone offered to help, but the servants were more efficient than any of us, and when the palace courtiers realized that even the princes were throwing their back into preparations, some of them had come down to try and catch their eye.

One of them was keener than all the rest.

I recognized the man from the corridor my first day in the palace. He’d stopped Kasia and gotten in the way, but I hadn’t spared him a thought since—not until he spent his day ogling Kostya as he worked in his shirtsleeves, a smile on his face, rather than helping with the work himself.

I almost couldn’t blame him. Kostya was beautiful like this—his hair tied back but coming loose as the day wore on, his cheeks flushed with exertion. He was beautiful always, but I’d rarely seen him so careless as I did as we prepared for the festival.

Mostly, I tried to ignore Zakhar’s lingering stares, the way he licked his lips. For the first time in ages, I felt out of control, like I might lash out against someone I didn’t mean to hurt, and it was a good thing I didn’t have claws.

Was this the sort of man I thought could replace me in loving Kostya? It’d seemed so absurd that anyone could fail to adore him, but Zakhar didn’t deserve to do so.

Blood and spit, I was jealous. It was my first time realizing how absurd, how impossible, it would be for me to allow another person that close to Kostya. He was mine. He had said so himself.

So when Zakhar took advantage of a moment I’d stepped away to approach Kostya, I’d had to bite back a snarl. Kostya, with a kind and patient smile, excused himself not long after, but I stalked toward Zakhar nonetheless, forcing a bundle of wood into his arms that was too heavy for any wilting lord.

“Help,” I growled at him.

If he was going to be out and ogling, the least he ought to do was help.

Zakhar glared at me, his black brows furrowed with displeasure.

“You’re the prince’s new fling, aren’t you?”

I bared my teeth at him, for once meaning it in the natural dragon manner, as a threat. “I am Kirian.”

I was more than a fling, a plaything. I was Kostya’s everything. Every breath of wind and every beat of his heart. As he was mine.

Zakhar stared at me, shock widening his eyes and leaving his mouth slack.

“You’re—”

“Cousin!”

It took me a moment to realize that Genya was calling for me—that that was our story. I was his cousin from the country, and I certainly wasn’t supposed to go snarling my true name in the face of our enemies. Not that any of us had done a great job of that. We just didn’t lie all that well. Except Genya, the cleverest of us all.

“Can you come help me?” Genya pressed. When I looked past him, his eyes were wide and demanding, and I had to stuff down my annoyance with this interloper and retreat.

Really, all Genya was doing was braiding ribbons for the maypole, but he had me hold the end to keep it taut. He hardly needed me for that, but so long as I was holding it for him, it kept me still and out of trouble.

Genya met my eye sidelong as he worked. “You should avoid Zakhar,” he said quietly, all too aware that people might be listening. “He has strange views on bonding. If he were to realize who you really are, he could cause problems.”

I smiled and nodded, but it was with a sinking sense of dread. There’d been too much recognition and understanding in Zakhar’s eyes. I might be an impossible thing, but he knew me, and he hated all the more that I was not some random distraction Kostya had taken on, but his own.

There’d be no coming between us.

But the work eased my worries, and I threw myself into it.

When we were finally finished, it came with a sense of pride for the fact that I had helped arrange everything. Sure, I didn’t think that I’d done anything special, but I had still contributed. I’d worked with people, and they’d been grateful for it.

Not just Kostya. When we were finished on the evening the festivities began, Dasha had hugged me so tight and thanked me for helping.

She’d thanked us all, sure, but it wasn’t surprising that she’d show that kindness and gratitude to her friends and family, even her servants. But me? She’d included me, and it was the very first time that I’d realized how empty my life had been before Zoya had come into my cell in the dragon stables.

I’d had Kostya and the dark, and while he was enough—would always be enough—this was . . . this was overwhelming and good.

At the end of our work, when Nikolai had brought out ale and bread and cheese for refreshment, I wandered away to catch my breath and collect myself before people started to arrive. I felt very near to tears, and I did not want them to see how shaken I was, especially when I did not understand it myself.

For such a long time, I’d been so lonely. I’d thought the world full of dangerous dragons and selfish, cruel people. And it was, but it was also full of this.

Sensing my mood, Kostya followed me. I faced away from the others, out toward the line of evergreens that marked the edge of the field where the festival was held, and his arm slid around my back when he came close.

I leaned into him, my breath escaping in a slow stream as I dropped my cheek onto his shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

I nodded, but long, silent minutes stretched between us before I could say more than that.

I lifted my head and looked at him, and Kostya—ever patient and kind—looked back at me with a soft smile, waiting for me to gather my thoughts and the words that came to me with such difficulty. Silly Kostya would’ve waited for me all his life, I realized. And maybe that was what Zoya meant. Who else would he be so patient for? Who else would happily do the same for him?

“Family, Kostya,” I whispered, my voice choked by emotion I could not let out. There were too many years of pain and emptiness, and I did not want to carry them anymore. Certainly, I did not want to heap them on him too.

I looked over his shoulder, between us, and he turned to look back at them as well. Misha laughed as he straightened his husband’s hair. It’d been mussed earlier in the day, and Genya had been spitting mad when he realized, right up until Misha kissed his head and told him he looked gorgeous and promised to mess him up more very soon.

Dasha fiddled with a ribbon hanging off the maypole, tying it tenderly in a bow around Nikolai’s wrist while her stoic knight blushed and leaned in to say something to her.

There were servants nearby, leaning against each other in their exhaustion. Some had sunk to the ground and pulled apart chunks of bread with their fingers.

“I want them to see me and smile,” I went on. “I want to work, to do things that please them, not make them afraid.” With a rough swallow, I looked up at Kostya again. All of this was only possible through him, and if I went back to scales and claws, I could lose it all. “I want belonging.”

He nodded ardently, as if he’d never understood anything better. “You do belong,” he swore. “You will.” He glanced back at his family and scowled, thinking through it. “We’ll make sure it gets better together. Whatever it takes.”

Chapter 45

Kostya

The notion that Kirian wanted my family as his family was . . .

Well, I couldn’t think of words that properly explained how flummoxed I was. My family was angry and messy and filled with excesses that I hated. Or, we had been, once.

And somehow, before seeing it all through Kirian’s eyes, I’d missed how thoroughly we had changed. When King Alexei and my father died, while it had been tragic and torn us to shreds, it had also removed some of our very worst instincts. Alexei’s casual cruelty and my father’s thoughtless violence. Misha was violent, yes, but never without thought. And none of us had ever been the monster Alexei had been, not even Dima at his worst. He took no joy in causing pain. He didn’t seem to take joy in anything.

I looked around the gathering with new eyes as I led Kirian back to the group of them.

His eyes.

The eyes of someone who’d been shut away for years, even from his only good friend, Maraht.

Of course he wanted this. I was privileged in a way I’d never seen before, because for me, it had simply been. I’d never been without my family, so I didn’t understand what a boon they were.

Misha’s intense protectiveness, Zoya’s constant scheming on our behalf, and Dasha’s endless well of kindness. Nikolai’s patience, shown in the fact that he hadn’t simply killed every male Vasiliev alive. Genya’s beauty and wit and grace, to say nothing of the loving way he looked at my too-often-ignored brother.

How had I been so ignorant?

So I made everyone come back to our rooms and have a drink together before the first night of festivities, and they didn’t hesitate before agreeing. I could see Dasha wanting to bring Dmitri, but we all knew that wouldn’t happen. Not yet. We needed to find a way to bring him back to us first.

His father’s death had driven him to a precipice, and bonding to the land had likely shoved him off it. We had to find a way to take some of the responsibility off his shoulders. A way to let him go back to being Dima, and not an angry, frightened creature whose dragon burned withered flowers to ash.

Zoya came out of her rooms as we entered, and looked suspicious at us working together, but sat with us all the same. Then, as conversation progressed, and everyone was happy and relaxed and—perhaps even hopeful?—she relaxed as well.

Once, she even smiled. “I want to talk to all of you as soon as the planting festival is done. I have an idea about . . . how to handle some things that we’ve been struggling with.”

Dima, she meant. Misha leaned forward, goblet clutched tight in his hands, and I could tell he wanted to push for answers right that moment. But from the way Dasha was hesitating, I could see why my sister wanted to wait. If she waited to talk about it, it was less intense. Less frightening. Less like we were looking for a box to hide the king’s body inside.

“Indeed,” I agreed. “First the planting festival, then we all work together to find other ways to help Voronezh recover from the last decade’s upheavals.”

“All?” Dasha asked, her voice tiny.

“Of course. Dima will be busy until after his speech for the start of the festival tonight.” I looked at Zoya, lifting an eyebrow. “We cannot make plans without the king, after all.”

Zoya snorted. “I make all my plans without men, then rope the lot of you into doing what needs done. It takes forever, but it’s easier and faster than convincing you to be sensible.”

Finally, Dasha relaxed, and giggled. “Nikolai is always very sensible.”

Zoya turned to look him over, eyes narrowed, but then nodded. “So he is. An anomaly among men. I should study him.”

Nikolai looked no more comfortable with that than I’d have been, but neither did he flee. He really was a formidable man, worthy of my cousin.

“We’d best get out to the stands, then,” Genya said, pressing his hands into his knees and pushing out of his chair. “We don’t want the king to think we don’t stand behind him by literally not standing behind him.”

Misha grumbled about annoying courtly social events, but there was none of the vitriol toward Dima he’d have spewed in previous years. Dasha rushed off to change into her formal clothes, and in a few moments, we were alone in the common room.

“Do you want to wear something formal?”

Kirian didn’t have any proper formalwear—there’d been no need to ask the tailor for any—but he could wear some of mine easily enough.

“Green dress?” he asked, looking down at the informal brown trousers and homespun shirt he’d been wearing to work in during the day.

“Kaftan,” I corrected with a smile. He knew all the words, understood most human concepts, but sometimes he still struggled with the subtle differences between similar ideas. “Dresses don’t need trousers underneath. Like Zoya’s clothes. But the green one is still here if you’d like to wear it. It looks lovely on you.”

He flushed beautifully at the comment, which had been the goal, so I considered it a job well done, and dragged him in to wash up and change.

By the time we all met in the stands we’d helped to erect, he was resplendent in his green and golden-brown, giving off his inner light as though he were the very sun, and I a deep blue shadow cast only by his existence.

Dima was already there, and he was strangely agitated.

Well, perhaps not strangely. His dragon was off burning innocent fields, after all. It was no surprise that something was wrong with my cousin.

The effect was made even more obvious when he stood to give the king’s usual planting festival speech. It was supposed to be a little thing, about how the land was coming back to life with the spring, flowers blooming and bees buzzing, and that the land would fulfill the promise that it and the Vasilievs had made to each other, and continue to be bountiful for the people of Voronezh.

Dima had never been much one for speeches, but this year was even worse.

“Time for the planting festival again,” he said, his tone like he’d meant to say “your puppy died in the night, sorry.”

Then he stared off into space for a while before shaking himself and looking back up at the hundreds of people staring up at him. Standing there, waiting for him to say something profound. Something hopeful, at least. And instead, he said, “Don’t bother planting flowers. They won’t grow anymore. Just be thankful you’re alive and take what you can.”

The people, expecting something more, even from Dima, continued to stare at him, all of us trapped in disappointed silence.

The roar that went up behind the crowd made my blood curdle in my veins. Was it Danik, come to throw another tantrum, but this time at a crowd of people?

No.

It was an enormous green dragon, in the air right above the crowd.

Everyone on the stands, even me, glanced to Kirian at my side, who looked horrified, his mouth hanging open in shock. He tugged my sleeve and turned to stare at me. “Festival is not for dragon-shaped dragons.” Before I could even process that and try to explain that it wasn’t so much about dragons but their size, he continued, leaning in as though it was a secret. “He will squash tiny humans.”

And sure enough, the dragon came swooping forward, toward the center of the stands where the royal family was seated, forcing the crowd in front of us to flee or risk being landed on by the biggest dragon I’d ever seen other than Kirian.

Chapter 46

Kirian

Joining Kostya on the stage, I had worried that the king would see me and fall into another frenzy. But the rest of the family hadn’t even paused to consider whether or not I should stand amongst them.

From below the stage, Zakhar Laskin glared up at me, and—and how had I ever thought that Kostya could have someone like him? Kostya was my own, and Zakhar was far from good enough to stand below, on the ground like a worm, and gaze adoringly up at my prince.

In the end, Dmitri’s gaze didn’t even linger on me. I knew better than to hope that meant he’d forgiven me, but at least his anger had cooled enough that I no longer mattered to him.

Perhaps he was just nervous to stand in front of so many people, all staring up at him for hope and direction. I couldn’t have done it.

Still, my words stilted though they were, I might’ve done a better job than the king had done. A wave of discomforting sadness washed over me from Kostya, who at least would have been kind to the people, but he seemed bothered more for Dima, who was . . . not well.

As unwell as Danik, up there in the mountains, holding himself apart from everyone and taking his revenge on ghosts.

At least, Kostya was worried for Dima until the sound of a dragon roar, and I looked up.

From down here, it was all too easy to forget the sky, and it took a moment to remember that there was so much space up there where a dragon could fly.

This one was riderless, green, enormous.

He was also my sire.

I had known him all my life, staring at him from afar. Maraht’s sire, Prokhor, had been interested in his hatchling, indulgent and amused. Gerasim . . . had not. But he’d still impressed me, and when I had been born small—the first dragon bonded to the next generation of the Vasiliev line—I had wished so fiercely that I’d been cut in his image, fit for a prince. Resplendent, controlled, incredible.

Instead I’d been a fearful, crawling thing, as Gerasim was when he landed amidst the screaming people.

He kept his belly low to the ground, snarling as he snapped his jaws at the stage, breathing fire at people in the way.

They were dead. Not everyone, but some. Too many. The familiar, horrible scent of burning flesh hit me, just like it had in Dobryanka, only my human stomach couldn’t handle it.

Misha had taken out his sword, stepped forward as if to do battle with the beast.

“It’s Kirian,” a male voice bellowed, high and sharp. Zakhar was there, cowering back, terrified. And still, his eyes flicked to me.

He knew he was lying. But word that Kostya’s dragon was missing had gotten around the castle, and—and not the impossible truth that I’d been there all along. Who would believe it, even if they heard the rumor? Even Kostya had not known.

But Zakhar’s shouting drew more attention to Kostya, terrified people looking to him to keep the dragon in check.

He couldn’t. He wasn’t bound to Gerasim. That was Georgiy alone, and if anyone had a hope of calming him, it’d be the eldest prince.

Or a . . . a dragon.

We weren’t stupid. Every one of us knew that if it came down to a fight—a real fight—between any of us, the consequences would be brutal.

Look what I had done to Adorjan, still a hatchling and just a little scared.

Gerasim might be afraid, or might only be rageful, but he was full grown. Enormous. Dangerous.

I looked for Georgiy, but he was still, like he was waiting for something. He made no move to stop Gerasim as he spat a gout of flame across the front of the stage.

If Georgiy couldn’t stop him, the only other creature in Voronezh who could hope to was another dragon. One every bit as large and as dangerous as my sire.

Every bit as large and dangerous as I’d once been.

While Georgiy still stood upon it, Gerasim couldn’t do much more. Not with fire. If Gerasim killed Georgiy, he’d feel it. It was practically inevitable that he’d die alongside him. No dragon would ever attack his rider.

“Maraht is on his way,” Misha shouted. “We just have to hold the beast off till he gets here.”

He and Dima’s guard did their best to hold Gerasim off while the dragon snapped madly at the people on stage, but swords were no match for dragon fangs. It was only a matter of time before they were dead or bleeding, before they lost their arms when Gerasim swatted them away like bees.

“Zoya!” I rounded on her, eyes wide and pleading. She had to fix this. There was no choice anymore.

Gerasim could murder Kostya, could murder everyone here. I had to do something, and I needed my scales to manage it.

She looked at me, holding onto Dasha’s arm, pulling her away while the princess shrieked for her twin brother. “It’s you,” she said.

And though I couldn’t hear her above the chaos and violence, I felt her words in my bones.

I had to fix this. It was my choice and even if I was afraid, I was the only one who could master that fear. I was in control of the magic she’d given me.

And I was not going to let Gerasim slaughter these people.

I threw myself into the crowd and searched my own heart for the dragon I’d once been, praying that it hadn’t abandoned me entirely.

A roar tore from my throat as I threw my full weight into the dragon who’d made me. My claws pierced his green scales.

Chapter 47

Kostya

Some ass had started shouting that the attacking dragon was Kirian as the people scattered.

But that was the answer I’d needed.

Because I’d been surveying the stage in front of me as the shout went up, and a cruel smile curled a set of lips I hadn’t even thought of in the panic of the moment.

Uncle Georgiy.

More the fool I, for not immediately knowing it. What dragon in all Voronezh could pass for Kirian to panicked people facing his claws?

Only Uncle Georgiy’s own dragon, Gerasim.

Kirian surged forward next to me, as though he could stop the dragon in his fleshy human form, like Misha brandishing a sword at the damned monster, like it couldn’t fry him in place.

Instead of rushing up, though, Kirian entreated Zoya once again. And then time seemed to stand still, as I saw something new enter his eyes. Understanding?

A second later, I was holding a handful of his—my—green kaftan, and a dragon was bursting forth from the stage, roaring his anger at Gerasim. My beloved dragon, in all his enormous emerald scaly glory.

This dragon, though, wasn’t trying to stomp on people or burn them. No, he only had eyes for his sire, teeth bared in determination.

“No, that’s Kirian,” I shouted, glaring again at the direction the shout had come from. Then I turned to Misha, who looked like he was still considering jumping down from the stage and going after Gerasim, so I added another shout. “The dragon attacking is Gerasim!”

It served to defend Kirian’s honor, of course, but in that moment, the important thing was that Misha jerked back from the edge of the stage and whirled to look at Georgiy, who was no longer smiling.

Our uncle drew his sword and glared at my brother, and I was too damned far away, dozens of shoving, screaming, fleeing people between me and them, both of them at the front of the stage.

Not that Misha couldn’t beat Uncle Georgiy in a fight.

No, that wasn’t the problem at all. The problem was that he wouldn’t. It was the same reason Father had never asked Misha to take part in his plot against the king. He’d known my brother was a truly honorable man, who would never murder his own uncle, particularly not in cold blood.

Even now, with the hottest blood and every reason, he would struggle with it.

I started shoving people out of my way, trying to get to where Misha and Georgiy were both brandishing swords, staring each other down. The crowd wasn’t paying attention, though, too panicked, screaming and pushing and squeezing in wherever they could in the attempt to get away from the dragon—or now, dragons.

I glanced in that direction, though I was trying not to think about Kirian fighting for his life, and found him locked together with his own sire, their claws digging into each other and teeth flashing and—was Kirian bigger than Gerasim? He definitely was.

As I looked, Kirian snapped his teeth around his sire’s snout as Gerasim tried to send another gout of flame at some fleeing farmers, and the older dragon let out a truncated roar of pain, the flames barely licking at his own nostrils instead of leaping to the frightened people, since he couldn’t open his jaws to let it out.

That seemed to enrage the dragon, and he leapt at Kirian. I could barely watch as tons of green-scaled horror came down on my Kirian, but as sweet and soft as Kirian was, he knew what to do in a life-or-death battle. He lifted his hind legs and raked them across Gerasim’s belly. They didn’t catch as strongly as we’d have liked, but Gerasim still roared in pain and anger, and pulled back.

The grunt of pain in front of me snatched my attention back to my brother’s fight.

Georgiy, somehow, was not at all affected by his dragon’s pain. No, he was grinning at my brother, who had a slash open on his arm, and was leaning back, away, on the railing of the stage. He still had his sword, and his usual determined deadly expression, but damn it all, he was off. He couldn’t fight family like—

Like I could.

I gave up even the pretense of civility and shoved people out of my way, into each other and all the way over into the seats in the case of one man who refused to move out of my way. My brother was not going to die because some cowards were too determined to flee instead of helping him.

Nikolai, carrying Dasha, gave me an apologetic look as he headed for the edge of the stage, and instead of fighting his way through the crowd to the stairs, he simply leapt off and let himself fall the ten or so feet to the ground, cradling my cousin against himself. I shook my head at him and motioned for him to go. The best thing he could do was take Dasha away from this.

Zoya, standing there at the spot where he’d leapt, looked back at me, and I waved her off even as I drew my sword. The more of my family who fled to safety while I handled this, the better. Having to worry about them wasn’t going to help me do what needed to be done.

Because that was what I was going to do this time. I wasn’t going to let this be like my father and his plot against the king, the end of it nearly ruining all our lives.

This time, I was going to stab the bastard myself.

Chapter 48

Kirian

Gerasim’s weight crushed on top of me, and we tumbled. I felt the snap of wooden beams—chairs and tables and—and people—beneath my spine.

My wings folded to roll, but they flexed out at the sharp pain of it when I hit the ground.

I had to get Gerasim away from these people. Whether we meant it or not, and I had to think that he did mean it, we’d kill dozens while trying to tear each other apart.

I’d never had opportunity to fight like this. What dragon would I have fought with? If we weren’t family by blood, each of us in the stables was bonded to a Vasiliev.

When Alexei and Pyotr had died, so had any real chance of open conflict amongst the Vasilievs. Until now.

This brutality stood out like edged steel against all the fear of my youth. What had I been so afraid of, when this was the face of real danger? Nothing Adorjan had ever done, at her very worst, could stand against the bloodthirst in my sire’s eyes. She’d leapt at me, and I’d been afraid. Now, I could see what fear really tasted like.

With all the strength in my back legs, I kicked out and sent him off me. His claws dug through the earth. His powerful tail whipped, and I heard a scream. A crack.

He’d sent someone flying.

Upright on my feet, I stretched my wings. Flapped them.

Gerasim did not respond.

The second that he thought I’d flee from him and take to the skies, he turned his attention back to the stage and bared his teeth at my family.

I gave up on trying to get him away, and reared up on my back legs, spreading my wings to block his view of the stage and my family upon it. He snarled at me, going up as well.

With our front claws, we scratched at each other, tearing deep red rivulets in each other’s chests. We stretched our necks, jaws open, trying to find somewhere soft, some flesh to tear free.

Gerasim was determined to go through me. I was determined to stop him. There was no room for restraint from either of us.

I pushed forward, shoving him back as people ran screaming. All I had to do was keep him occupied, pin him if I could. Maraht would come for Misha. He would help me.

Only, I glanced at the empty skies above, and that gave Gerasim what he needed—a moment of distraction to tip the scales.

He stretched, shifting around me, and latched onto the side of my neck. Shrieking, I panicked. My front legs hit the ground and I jerked, trying to shake him off.

He bit in harder, using the leverage to crawl on top of me.

His teeth came out of my scales in a gush of hot blood, only for him to bite down again, crushing me from above.

Flat on my front, Gerasim held me down, his jaws around the back of my neck. He’d break my spine if he could, and though I scrambled my back legs to try and find purchase, I couldn’t get out from beneath him. He held me firm, his teeth sinking deeper.

If I only had another moment to live, there was only one person I wanted to see. With a whine, I rolled my eyes up to the stage, where my Kostya fought his uncle.

Chapter 49

Kostya

As I shoved my way through the crowd, the roar of dragons distracted Misha for a moment, and Georgiy took advantage—he planted a foot in front of Misha and shoved his shoulder hard, pushing him off the front edge of the stage.

The annoyed look on Misha’s face as he tumbled over the edge almost made me laugh aloud. I’d never been more grateful for a bit of underhanded shit before in my life. Misha could survive a ten-foot fall, and it would take him out of the fight long enough.

Long enough for me to spill the Vasiliev blood that needed spilling. Of the five of us remaining, I was the only one who could.

Georgiy, ignoring me since I wasn’t in front of him, stepped toward Dima, only stopped in his progress by a determined, serious Arkadii with his sword already drawn.

“This would have been simpler if he’d just gone ahead and killed himself, you know,” Georgiy said, sounding like he was making conversation and not threatening his king. His own damned nephew. “He lost his mind well enough, but the boy just damned well refused to die.”

Arkadii flinched, but he didn’t falter. He held his sword, waiting for the inevitable attack. “If you force me to kill you, I will,” he said, and his voice barely trembled even at threatening a member of the royal family. A man who’d been sword fighting when Arkadii wasn’t even a gleam in his mother’s eye. Arkadii might be the best with a sword in Voronezh, but sometimes, especially in a close fight, experience counted for more than skill and talent.

Georgiy snorted and motioned to Kirian and Gerasim. “Oh please, boy. I’ll just wait for my dragon to finish his whelp. There’s no need for me to kill you.”

Arkadii turned to look at the dragons fighting and I . . . I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t hear Kirian’s pain, look at it, and still get people out of my way to join the fight in time to stop Georgiy.

Arkadii, meanwhile, looked sickened. “You’re forcing your dragon to kill his own child?”

Georgiy gave a careless shrug, waving his sword toward them. “Whelp shouldn’t have gotten involved. Too bad, really, but not important. I suppose at least this way I don’t have to kill Kostya myself. Boy was always my favorite. Not a hothead like his brother or a prissy bitch like Dima.”

And that was when the last of the crowd finally parted, leaving only chairs between me and my quarry. I lashed out with a leg, sweeping them out of my way as I lunged forward, unsheathing my sword. “I’m afraid that isn’t a choice you can make after all, uncle.”

Georgiy spun toward me, face contorted in . . . some emotion, so hard and sharp-edged that I couldn’t have called it regret, but perhaps there was some of that. It didn’t matter. His life had been forfeit the moment he’d turned against his family.

I met Arkadii’s eye, then glanced to Dima and jerked my head toward the palace in a silent signal. Thank the blood, he did as I asked, sheathing his sword and leading Dima away as my cousin stared into the sky in confusion. I thought perhaps he was mumbling for Danik as he went.

“This must end,” Georgiy hissed, frustration lacing his voice. “Can’t you see that he’s a worthless king?”

“Are you trying to convince me you haven’t been planning this?” I was sneering at him, and I imagined I’d never looked so much like my own father. Like my Uncle Alexei.

Uncle Alexei.

“We’re finally going to stop him,” my father had told me.

We.

Not I. Not that I’d ever thought my father much of a schemer, since he’d failed so utterly, but . . . but I’d never truly imagined that both of my uncle’s brothers had been plotting his death. Until now. Georgiy had been hoping that Dima would kill himself; he’d just said so.

And with Alexei dead and Father executed for it, if Dima had died a decade ago, who would have been the first choice for a stable king?

Uncle Georgiy.

He hadn’t just planned to kill King Alexei, he’d planned it all, everything that had happened. The only circumstance in which he’d have been made king.

Only it hadn’t gone quite like he’d wanted, because as fragile as Dima’s psyche had proven, as much as the situation had broken him, it hadn’t broken him like Georgiy needed.

“I thought one of you would do it for me,” he added, taking a guard stance. He clearly didn’t plan to actually fight me, but hold me off until Gerasim killed Kirian, killing or weakening me enough to take me down in the fallout. “But you were both too blood-forsaken honorable to kill the pansy. That’s not what Voronezh is about. We cull our weakness. This land was carved out of the ice by our ancestors. It’s built on strength, not some lovey caring nonsense.”

He was right. Our ancestors had fought tooth and nail for every inch of land that was ceded by the snow. But he was also wrong. Because if they hadn’t banded together, hadn’t been allies instead of every person working only for themself, they never would have succeeded. They had needed grit and determination, yes, but they had also needed each other.

If I hadn’t already known that, the last few weeks had taught me well. Zoya had given me what she thought I needed, to her own detriment. Misha had protected me when I hadn’t known what to do. Kirian and I went to find Adorjan when Dasha could not. Everyone had stood by each other as we found our way.

Without each other, we would still be floundering. I might have been lost long ago.

I shook my head. “It’s good you’ll never be king. You’d have been an even worse ruler than your brother.”

Georgiy bared his teeth at me, but didn’t lunge or lash out. Of course he didn’t. He was a much more sensible opponent than that. I supposed it was why he favored me, among the male Vasilievs of my generation. Horrifically, I was the most like him.

Something else occurred to me then, as I was staring down the monster I’d spent thirty years calling uncle. “Dima didn’t attack Dobryanka at all, did he? It was you. That’s why no one was left alive. So no one could say it wasn’t him.”

Georgiy gave me a smile and the barest hint of a bow, like a showman, proud of his work. “A masterstroke, I thought. If nothing else would, mass murder ought to get your idiot brother angry enough to kill the little weakling.” The smile went sour. “But the two of you still didn’t do the job.”

“We wanted to help him, not murder him.”

The smile turned into more of a baring of teeth than a smile. “Always, always, you miss the point of being a prince of Voronezh. Why do you insist on spinelessness?”

I could have explained it to him. That love wasn’t weakness. That family wasn’t a weakness. But I wouldn’t convince him. Georgiy was nearly thirty years older than me, and he had formed this opinion before I was born. May as well try to change the face of a rock with merely words.

So instead, I gave him what he wanted.

“Speaking of weakness, it seems your dragon is getting old, Uncle.” His eyes narrowed, and he firmed his stance. “You thought you’d be able to avoid killing me. It seems I’ll be the one to not have to kill you. Kirian is bigger than his sire these days, you know.”

That was it.

He looked.

He had to look, because I spoke with absolute confidence. I didn’t actually know who was winning the dragon battle, because unlike him, I wasn’t going to leave it to chance.

No, the second his head turned toward the fight between Kirian and Gerasim, I side-stepped his sword arm and moved in, burying my own sword in his gut. No fight. No great duel to the death the likes of which Misha and Arkadii were trained and ready for.

No. I was Kostya. I was, as he’d pointed out, like him.

There was no real honor in an honorable duel. There was only winning and losing, and I would not lose. I would not allow Gerasim to hurt Kirian, or Georgiy to hurt Dima anymore.

I stepped in close, so that he wouldn’t be able to swing his sword and hit me, and twisted the blade of my own, cutting into his guts as he turned to look back at me, horror and something disturbingly like respect in his eyes. He gave me a crimson grin as blood dribbled from his mouth, and a breathy laugh left him.

“Yes, Nephew. Just like that. Well done.”

Chapter 50

Kirian

Idid not have to tear out Gerasim’s throat. He let go of me, took a couple of staggered steps backward, breathing heavily, and fell to the ground. His eyes rolled, bright green and frenzied. They locked on me, and I watched as they went flat, as his great body stilled, as even his breaths ceased shuddering.

His Georgiy was dead. My Kostya had killed him.

Gerasim and Georgiy had been bonded for longer than I’d been alive, and I knew I’d never survive losing my Kostya. I knew it like I knew the sun rose in the morning.

My sire was no better off. Kostya had plunged his sword into Georgiy’s belly, and that’d been the end of them both.

My muscles ached from battling to throw Gerasim off of me. His claws had sunk beneath my scales, and his teeth had done worse. I could feel the blood running down my shoulder from the back of my neck, the wounds against my front.

Gerasim, dead though he was, was in no better shape. Georgiy was bound and determined that we would kill each other.

We hadn’t had to.

A slow, shaking breath escaped me as I gathered myself and finally turned to look at the stage.

Kostya was there, a single dark figure in the middle of all that chaos, standing over his uncle’s body.

People had fled as Gerasim had tried to get to the stage—to the king. Kostya was the only one left there. His family had fled. He was alone.

I couldn’t stand it.

Kostya’s agony washed over me, and I roared, giving sound to the feeling when Kostya stood there on stage, too still and too silent for the turmoil inside him.

That shook him out of it, and he turned to look at me, pale and horrified. “Kirian?” he croaked.

I stepped gingerly over the refuse of our fight—splintered wood and broken bodies. I didn’t want to make it worse, to thoughtlessly crush it all underfoot. But still, I made my way to him. Had to have him. Breathe him in. See him safe.

With a soft rumble, I lowered my head toward the stage. He sheathed his sword, reaching for me with both hands, so that when I pushed forward, his fingers ran up from my snout.

Concern swam in his eyes. “You’re hurt,” he whispered.

I harrumphed. It was true, but I’d be fine. Bruised and bleeding, for the moment, but I was a dragon. So long as I could still move, I’d be fine.

Though even I was heartened by the straightness of his posture. Kostya wasn’t hurt, wasn’t wilting, wasn’t dying.

It stood to reason that I wasn’t either.

“You’ll be all right,” he said, running his hand up and down the bridge of my snout. “You’ll be all right.”

Was he trying to convince me, or himself?

My Kostya’s heart ached. He felt bitter and lost and broken, and he was none of those things.

But this place, his horrible uncle, this wretched day—all of it had made him feel so bleak and lost.

I nudged against him harder, and he frowned.

“Kirian?”

Again, I nudged him. This time, he stumbled. With my front paws on the stage, I stretched out toward him, running my jaw along his chest to mark him with my scent.

Flat on the platform, I set my chin down and rumbled again.

This place was wrong, and we were hurt—our hearts and more. And damn it all, I’d take Kostya away from this before I let it drown him.

I might not have words to say what I meant, but Kostya understood. Our hearts were one, and he always would.

He gripped the bony scales that protruded down my spine, and he flung himself onto my shoulders. He was sitting in my blood, beneath the bite mark my sire had left, and it was still a relief to have him on my back. Close. Warm.

His weight was familiar. I knew he was safe there.

“Kostya, wait!” Misha called from below.

I saw Maraht in the distance, flying closer. He’d catch up, and then Kostya and I would never get away.

And that’s what we needed—away.

So I ignored Misha and Maraht both, turned, and leapt into the air with my wings spread wide.

Chapter 51

Kostya

How could I possibly face Misha after that? After killing our uncle, and knowing beyond all doubt that he’d been right?

I was the one who was like Georgiy.

And Kirian was hurt and scared and sad, because his own sire was dead, and we’d both been forced to have a hand in that.

Worst of all, and somehow best at the same time, Kirian was a dragon again.

I loved him as a dragon, of course. Kirian was perfect in any form, in every way, but there had been something wild and wonderful about him having soft human skin that gave beneath my fingers, about his soft gasps of air as I ran my hands over him. The feel of him inside me, and being inside him.

It was hard to imagine going back to how things had been, even if I saw little way out of that now.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Not Georgiy or Gerasim or who was in what form. All that mattered was that Kirian was alive, and so was I, and we had what we’d always had.

What we always would have: each other.

I didn’t guide him as we flew; it didn’t even occur to me. I only had to be close to him and flying. It was all I needed in the world.

Still, when he set us down some time later, I wasn’t surprised to find us in our usual grassy field, high in the mountains. The rock he usually sunned himself on was cold and empty, since the sun had long abandoned the sky, but he slid onto it anyway, tired and sad and just . . . done.

I understood that. It had been a long day, and while it had started out lovely, it—

“I killed him,” I whispered. “And he was proud of me for it.”

Kirian turned and tucked his head alongside my body, nosing at me, as though to once again check that I was unharmed. I didn’t have so much as a paper cut, given the honorless way I’d won the fight. My shoulder hurt a bit from where I’d shoved a random lord out of my way to get to the fight, and that was the closest thing I had to an injury, so his search was in vain.

Kirian, meanwhile, was bloody everywhere, with scratches and bites given to him by his own sire.

“Do you remember Gerasim, from when you were a child? Was he—will you miss him? I’m sorry. I—”

Kirian gave a short huff, nosing at me harder, and I could feel him dismissing Gerasim. The dragon had been no family to Kirian. Maraht was not his brother, but he was like a brother. Adorjan was not related to either of them, but he felt responsible for her. Sad about her eyes.

But for Gerasim? He had only a small well of unease, of vague discomfort. There was no family there. Maraht was family. Dasha and Nikolai and Misha and even terrifying Zoya were family. Gerasim had been a stranger.

Not like Uncle Georgiy.

I swallowed hard and tried not to think of the things I’d loved about him. His wicked smile. That brash boldness that never managed to verge on recklessness, the way my father’s had. The fact that not fitting in with the rest of the family, he and I had been the clever ones. The well-read ones. The loners who kept their own counsel.

Except that his had turned out to be murder, and in the end, I always turned back to my family. I was apart from them, yes, but . . . but that had been a choice, and perhaps it was a bad one. I’d gotten into the habit of being alone, being the firstborn child of my generation, and never gotten past it.

It was time for that to stop.

Well . . . it was time for that to stop once we got home.

In the morning.

I curled up against Kirian, and we slept.

When I woke, the sun was high in the sky, noon or later for sure, and Kirian was curled around me like I was something precious he needed to protect from the world. He wasn’t asleep, but watching me, his enormous eyes swirling with color and emotion.

I could already feel his sadness, and I knew where it had come from. He was convinced that he was trapped, once again in his dragon form. It made sense. He’d changed, and now he was back. It had exhausted Zoya to do it once, so she couldn’t be asked to do it again. Kirian would never ask anyone to hurt themselves on his behalf. Kirian hardly ever asked anything of anyone.

But that wasn’t what she’d said. It’s you, she’d told him. And was a single transformation truly so taxing that it would have put my sister abed for a week or more? She was Zoya, terrifying blood witch of the Vasilievs. She had the power to bond the whole of Voronezh to a person.

This was something about Zoya’s magic that no one put much thought into: it wasn’t temporary. It was permanent. I’d never seen her cast a momentary spell that would go away later. The things she bonded didn’t come apart.

And she had somehow bonded Kirian to a new form.

It was, and would continue to be, his.

So I pushed myself up to a standing position in the circle of his body, and put my hand on his scaled cheek. “It’s okay. You turned back to protect me, and that’s done now, right? You protected me. We’re both safe. In our place.”

I motioned around the clearing, and his great swirling eyes followed the motion. After a moment, he gave a tiny nod, and I could feel the agreement and confusion sliding over the enormous well of sadness inside him.

“So now that we’re safe, you can change back. You can be soft again, without claws and fangs. You can be human again.”

The pang of longing that ripped through him was physically painful, along with the conviction that he could not.

But Kirian had always been nervous about Zoya, like most people. And for once, Zoya’s terrifying reputation would help us. I lifted a single brow at him. “Do you truly think Zoya would cast such a spell, that would wear off so easily? That she would hurt herself with such weak magic? No. You can change back. You simply have to do it.”

He stared at me for a moment, emotion cresting through both of us like a tidal wave after an earthquake, and then he stood, stared at me, and concentrated.

It took most of the day, a lot of frustration, and so many soothing hugs, but eventually, it happened. Once he stopped being frightened and angry and in pain, he simply . . . slipped back into his human skin. His very naked human skin.

Oops. I’d rather forgotten that part.

Chapter 52

Kirian

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Zoya. Well, I hadn’t thought her capable of such enduring magic, but I knew better than to ever say that to her directly. She would prove me wrong at once, and I doubted I would enjoy how she did it.

It was more that I did not trust myself, to be able to manage my own form. By the blood, I’d barely been able to manage my own fear.

And I didn’t trust the world. Zoya had given me a chance to have Kostya always, but I had given it up to have Kostya alive. Surely the world, cruel as it was, would not allow me another moment of that bliss.

It was not as easy as growing, to shrink again. Or perhaps it was only that it was harder because I knew myself as a dragon and was still learning about myself as a man. Still, once I had found the shape of me, it—it came easier.

And there Kostya stood, my own height, his eyes wide and round so I could see the whites all around those pools of blue.

“Kostya—” Blood, his name felt so sweet on my tongue. I could talk again! Talk to him. Say the things I had wanted to say while he’d suffered in the night.

Only, first, he threw himself at me. Instinctively, I opened my arms, and we were kissing like we had never stopped. Deep and hot, a battle of tongues marked by desperation and relief and—

“I need you,” I rasped.

I meant it in every way imaginable. I needed him right then—his body, his closeness—but I also needed him always. I could not breathe without him. He mattered to me above all.

And damn it, if I could not have him close that instant, I thought I might shatter.

I was naked already. His hands were everywhere, running across my skin. There was something in shrinking, in going from dragon to man—in being a dragon in the first place—that stitched my wounds together faster. I was still hurt, bruised, aching, but when Kostya’s fingers dug into the small of my back, I could only want more from him.

Unfortunate, as he was still too clothed.

Growling, I pulled at the buttons of his kaftan. I didn’t need him completely bare—or not that very second. In truth, I was only held back by the idea of him cold, that we weren’t in a soft bed surrounded by velvet and candles.

I’d have his skin later. Right then, I had to have his closeness.

I opened his kaftan, and it hung loose around his hips. His trousers were next.

Already, I was hard for him. Ready. And I could feel the same need from him—yes, in his body, but also in his heart, which ached so fiercely.

Staring into his eyes, I dropped my forehead against his and pushed past the loosened ties of his trousers.

He hissed, clinging to me when I guided his cock free.

It was the best feeling in the world, Kostya holding onto me and knowing that he felt safe and satisfied. I made him sure of that better than anyone or anywhere else.

I licked my hand and wrapped it around the both of us together. It was messy and fast and desperate. Kostya keened, pushing up on his toes, flexing his hips for more.

More was what I’d give him. I’d give him all that I had.

The sound of his moans got tighter, his jaw flexed as our pleasure built as one. I moved faster, fucking into my fist, my dick sliding against his like I could take him that way.

With a cry, Kostya’s hands dug into my shoulders. He shuddered, shoving himself against me like he’d bury his body in mine.

I came right after, the slick heat of him making it all too easy to topple over the edge.

He was still shuddering when I guided him to the ground. It was too chilly to stay for long, but my knees had turned soft, and I wasn’t ready to let go of him yet.

He lay on his back, his kaftan sheltering him from the soil beneath him. Me? I got to press my ear against his bare chest, breathe in the scent of his skin while I listened to his racing heart begin to slow.

We’d both needed that, but it hadn’t cleared everything up. There was still a marble of pain, hard and obstinate at the center of our relief.

I had words now, though, and I would speak all of them until Kostya understood that I would turn the land over before I allowed him to continue suffering.

“I am sorry,” I whispered, lifting my head to look down into his deep blue eyes.

Kostya shook his head. “You don’t have to be. None of this is your fault. I—”

I swooped in and pressed my lips to his. He was speaking nonsense, thinking that I was taking the weight of all the world’s wrongs onto myself.

For once, I knew better. All this evil, all the suffering and chaos and death, had been by Georgiy’s design. He’d used us all to achieve it, and in every way that mattered to him, he’d failed.

I leaned back when he’d gone soft beneath me, and smiled down at him. “No, Kostya. I am sorry for your heart. For sadness and for fear. I am sorry you hurt.”

Spreading my fingers, I let my hand rest heavily just over his heart. I could feel it beating beneath his warm skin, beneath his ribcage. I’d never been more grateful for anything in my life.

“I’m fine,” Kostya whispered.

But his eyes had begun to shine with tears. He blinked too fast, glanced away, laughed breathily. It was the tiniest hiccup of a sound.

I touched his cheek and guided his face back to me. There was no reason to point out his lie when we both already knew it.

“You are Kostya,” I said, staring directly into those watery eyes. A tear slipped from the outer corner of one of them and back toward his hairline, but he didn’t jerk away. “Who is loyal and brave and clever. My Kostya, who has a brother he would never hurt. Who follows a king who needs him, even when it is hard. Who is steadfast and patient and kind. Who is not Georgiy, who was never those things.”

He blinked, and I lowered my face to catch the streak of salty tears on my lips. His eyes fluttered shut. His breath shook.

“I killed him though,” he argued.

I shook my head, my cheek so close to him that he would feel the motion rather than see it. “For me and for Dima and for Voronezh. No other choice. You saved me. You save me always.”

Another bleak laugh from him, and I nuzzled in close, pressing my face to the side of his neck.

For a while, we stayed like that. I let him cry and held him close, and when his breathing evened out, I placed tiny kisses on his skin.

“It’s cold,” he muttered. “You’re shivering.”

I hadn’t noticed much, but the sky above had darkened, and I could only imagine how Voronezh ached at another Vasiliev betrayal.

“We must go home,” I said, drawing back.

Kostya caught me, his hand on my face.

“In a minute,” he promised, and when he leaned up to kiss me, I met him halfway.

Chapter 53

Kostya

The stable master was waiting upon our arrival, and blanched at the very sight of me. At the sight of Georgiy’s blood crusting my clothes, black spots across the deep blue. At the sight of Kirian, landing and then when I’d climbed off him, slowly turning back into his human form.

I turned to cover him with my kaftan, not wanting the whole palace to get an eyeful of what was mine, when the stable master cleared his throat.

“He’s, ah, he’s supposed to go back to the pen.”

I spun on him, eyes narrowed and hand reaching for my sword hilt without thought as I snarled. “He will never set another foot back in that cage. Never.”

Behind me, Kirian wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed my neck. “He is wrong, but he is not bad. He is not Georgiy.”

It was true enough, I supposed, as much as I wanted to gut him for suggesting he put Kirian back in that cell. After everything. After—

“He’s also making a horrible mistake,” came the sweet, high voice of Genya. My brother by marriage, Genya, and always so clever. “I hardly think the king would thank him for shutting the dragon who saved his life into a pen, regardless of what form he might be in.”

“Indeed,” Misha’s gruff tone followed, and a moment later he was shoving a heavy fur over Kirian’s shoulders. He leaned in and spoke lowly. “Genya saw you coming and worried you’d be cold in”—he looked around at the gray sky, and gave a shiver—“this. You’d think it wasn’t even spring anymore.”

Voronezh was always a harsh land, but indeed, spring days were usually more forgiving than these ones were turning.

Because Dima was bonded to the land, and once again, a member of his own family had tried to murder the king. Who could blame him for being horrified?

“Is he ordering deaths?” I whispered back to my brother, worried that the worst would happen and this time, Dima wouldn’t stop with the conspirators who had tried to kill him.

Misha merely shook his head and motioned for us to follow, so we did, leaving the dragon stable hands standing there in the twilight with nothing to do.

I put an arm around Kirian and drew him close. He was coming in, where he belonged. With me.

“He’s shut himself in his quarters,” Genya whispered, once we were far enough away that no one would hear us. “He won’t even let Dasha in. She’s declared Kirian the hero of the hour, said he saved us from Gerasim, who’d gone mad. She’s . . . she decided not to say anything to the people about Georgiy.”

It made sense. How many Vasilievs had to try to murder each other, and the land and farmers alongside them, before the people lost all faith?

“Clean,” Kirian finally said, then frowned, since clearly the word he’d found didn’t cover the scope of what he wanted to convey. “Sires and dams all gone. Clean for starting again.”

The generation, he meant. All of our fathers and their brothers and spouses were gone now. Dead of their own scheming or that of others.

But he’d been right that I wasn’t Georgiy, and none of us had to be like him. Yes, I’d killed my uncle, but I hadn’t done it because of bloodlust or a hope to gain something. I’d done it to protect those I held dear.

It was what Georgiy had missed.

Yes, I’d done what needed to be done, but I hadn’t done it because I was like him. I’d done it for reasons he hated. For love and hope and family.

I’d do it again in a second.

But maybe, just maybe Kirian was right.

Maybe I wouldn’t have to. Maybe we could all grab hold of Dima and pull him back from the precipice this time. Maybe all that really mattered, in the end, was love. Not power or strength. Family. We had each other, and we would find a way to make everything right.

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Burns & Fawkes’s Books & Foxes

Zephyr and the Western Wolf Blurb

The prince is dead, and dragons are the stuff of storybooks.

That is, until a great shadow passes over the edge of the Tangled Forest. Rumor sent an intrepid adventurer to a tower in the middle of the woods, and the story he carried back changed everything: Prince Zephyr is alive, and he’s being held prisoner by a giant beast of a dragon.

The prince disappeared more than a decade ago, and the kingdom mourned his loss and set his crown on the wheat-blond curls of the young princess. But now, the race is on as every knight in the kingdom and the lands surrounding it have come to slay the beast and bring the prince home.

Macarius has travelled from the Western Wastes with nothing but his horse and trusty sword, but he isn’t interested in saving a scrawny prince—he wants to meet a dragon. If he happens to save the prince and take him home, then that will just be a happy accident. Or maybe an annoying one, since Prince Zephyr isn’t nearly as happy to see his savior as he should be.

Zephyr and the Western Wolf is an MM epic fantasy serial novel. For all of 2023, join Zephyr and his warrior in the search for a home that suits them both. Only on our Patreon page.

Excerpt from Zephyr and the Western Wolf

CHAPTER ONE: ZEPHYR

Once upon a time, I died.

Well, that was the story my father and I had agreed upon. I would abandon my inheritance, the crown, and the kingdom, making way for a proper heir, and I would get to live my life on my own terms.

It’d been that, or agree to marry the lady Father chose for me, to produce children of my own, to rule in a manner that didn’t bring shame to my family.

I don’t actually think Father cared what I did behind closed doors, so long as no one found out, but being a prince came with responsibilities. For as long as I could remember, he had endeavored to teach me each and every duty the crown brought with it.

And I tried. Truly, I tried. But there was something intrinsic about who I was that chafed at the very idea. Putting a chore on my list of daily obligations was the surest way to see that it was never done. Instead, my attention flitted between smaller projects, puzzles that I could focus entirely on—perhaps for a handful of hours, perhaps for a few days—and once I solved one, I’d move onto the next.

To hold my concentration for any amount of time, a project had to be interesting, and one thing no one ever admitted about ruling a kingdom was that it was terribly, terribly dull work. Utter drudgery.

Day in and day out, I sat behind my father’s shoulder for meetings that droned on and on. Each one sounded the same, until I could no longer parse the voices, the topics discussed. Grain stores, border disputes, taxes. It didn’t matter to me, and while I sat there, my mind would pore over my newest fixation.

It never failed that my father would snap at me for fidgeting, for not paying attention, but no matter what either of us tried, I didn’t seem to be growing into the sort of person whose ass fit the throne as well as my father’s did. Even half as well.

So while I was trying to sort out a mechanism to load more than one bolt into a crossbow at once—because, damn it all, it annoyed me every time I had to pause and reload—I found the wizard, Ralph, looking over books in the library.

He didn’t live at the palace, of course. He said he didn’t like the pomp of it all, and even at fifteen, I’d been able to understand that.

I’d have left too, given the choice.

But he did like our library, so well stocked, and savored all the information it held. He, too, followed his interests, so we had always gotten along.

When he had narrowed his eyes thoughtfully my way and mused that he could use an extra set of hands in his work, an apprentice, I came up with a plan.

Of course, Ralph didn’t ask for my help outright. I was a prince. I had obligations. But he didn’t know how tired my father was of dealing with me. He didn’t know how tired I was of being dealt with.

So I took the issue to the king and presented it to him plainly. My little sister, Terra, was the delight of the kingdom. She’d make a far better ruler than I ever could. And I was all too willing to get out of the way for her. Better that than to spend the rest of my father’s reign driving him to worry and an early grave.

It’d taken convincing, but soon, I was standing between my father and Ralph while they concocted the terms of the agreement, the story we would tell. The heir would be taken, a search would be made, and Ralph would assist the efforts.

All the while, he’d hide me in his tower. He’d teach me. One day, I would be a wizard myself. Once Terra wore the crown, perhaps I’d even be able to assist the kingdom in a way that suited both me and it.

And if I didn’t? Well, at least I would be out of the way.

Those first weeks in Ralph’s tower, hidden behind a cloaking spell in the middle of a placid lake, I’d hardly dared to make a sound. I tiptoed over the old floorboards, sure that if even one creaked, I’d be found by my father’s men.

But they never came. Instead, rumor circulated that I must’ve been killed, a kidnapping gone wrong.

Publicly, I was dead, and Princess Terra was named heir.

I was left to practice magic—honest-to-gods magic—with a full-fledged wizard. All that peculiar focus I’d had for strange nonsense that my father saw no use in came in quite handy when dealing with spells and enchantments, and it was a wonder.

For the first time in my life, I felt useful. Dead, but useful.

The only thing was, I hadn’t died.

Now, Ralph had.

I’d found what was left of him—nothing but a pile of ash—in his work room at the very top of the southern tower, precariously balanced on the main one, that I was sure was held up by magic more than anything, as it seemed twisted and leaning and at risk of any moment toppling into the lake.

That was even before Ralph’s dear little drake, Elidi, had burst through the thatched roof, growing ten—no, twenty times her size from one minute to the next.

I’d searched the debris, but I had no idea what Ralph had managed to do, other than kill himself and transfigure Elidi, who’d been about the size of a cat before the disaster.

All of a sudden hosting a dragon was only the start of my troubles, though. It wasn’t until I hung my head from a tower window, shouting for Elidi to get out of the air lest she be seen, that for the first time in a decade, someone had spotted me.

Someone had seen.

The spells Ralph had cast to keep matters in the tower running smoothly, to keep us safe, were failing. And now, no one would bloody well leave me alone.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Amanda, Ange Capra, Grace Long Pope, and Melissa Johnson, our Regents of Llangard, and to all of our Patrons over on our Patreon page. Your support is enabling us to commission artwork based on our stories, ship signed paperbacks, offer our books in different formats, and more. We love getting to take this journey with you.

Thank you to our incredible PA, Kim Licki, who never fails to keep us sane and human-shaped! And to Natasha Snow for the beautiful cover. Big thanks to all the early readers of this book, Amy, Louise, Eliot, Raissa, and Kim, who’ve helped make our work shine.

Thank you to our families—yes, cats included—who let us glare at our screens for hours on end and make sure we don’t forget to eat.

And last but certainly not least, a great big thank you to you, readers! We couldn’t do this amazing job and write all the kissing books under the rainbow without your faith, energy, and support.

You’re the best. <3

Also by Sam Burns & W.M. Fawkes

TO KILL A KING

Dragon’s Dawn

Dragon’s Dusk

Dragon’s Descent (November 2023)

Pool of Dreams

FIRE & VALOR

The King’s Dragon

The Prince’s Dragon

The Assassin’s Dragon

LORDS OF THE UNDERWORLD

Prince of Death

Prisoner of Shadows

Patron of Mercy

SONS OF OLYMPUS

Wildfire

Fireforged

Warfire (coming Soon)

POISONWOOD & LYRIC NOVELLAS

Poisonwood

Wyrmwood

Hardwood

WOLF MOON RISING

Black Moon

Harvest Moon

Hunter Moon

Cold Moon

Strawberry Moon

STAR MARKED WARRIORS

Captured

Declared

Submitted

STAND-ALONE BOOKS

A Dragon’s Fortune (Magic Emporium #3)

For Life & In Death

Also by Sam Burns

CIRCLE THE SQUARE

The Elemental Keyes

The Elemental Ruins

THE FANTASTIC FLUKE

The Fantastic Fluke

Fluke and the Faithless Father

Fluke and the Faultline Fiasco

Fluke and the Frontier Farce

Fluke and the Fantastic Finale

THE WOLVES OF KISMET

Wolf Lost

Wolf Found

Wolf Reborn

THE ROWAN HARBOR CYCLE

Blackbird in the Reeds

Wolf and the Holly

Fox and Birch

Hawk in the Rowan

Stag and the Ash

Adder and Willow

In Any Light

Eagle in the Hawthorn

Salmon and the Hazel

Wren and Oak

WILDE LOVE

Straight from the Heart

Sins of the Father

Strike up the Band

Saint and the Sinner

A Very Wilde Christmas

MISCELLANEOUS

The Fairest

The Cat Returns to Adderly

Lightning Born

Also by W.M. Fawkes

The Seventh Ring of Bertram Bell

QUEENSFORT GHOSTS

The Haunting of Dark Water (coming soon)

The Mystery of Black Oak Manor (coming soon)

The Ghosts of Queensfort

About Sam Burns

Sam is an author of LGBTQIA+ fiction, mostly light-hearted fantasy romances. Most of her books include a little violence, a fair amount of swearing, and maybe a sex scene or two. Oh, and let’s not forget a fox. He’d be offended at being forgotten.

She is a full-time writer who lives in the Midwest with her husband and cat. Someday, she plans to be a full-time writer who lives near the ocean with her husband and cat.

For more information:

sam@burnswrites.com

About W.M. Fawkes

W.M. Fawkes is an author of LGBTQ+ fantasy and paranormal romance. She lives with her partner in a house owned by three halloween-hued felines that dabble regularly in shadow walking.

For more information:

www.fawkeswrites.com

waverly@fawkeswrites.com